Second Chances
by Spades 44
Summary: Crime doesn't stop just because you're dead. Set in the afterlife. L catches bad guys, eats cake, falls in love, and is haunted by a giant evil skeleton. Very, very slow meandering romance. Naomi/Raye. Matt/Mello. L/someone familiar.
1. Demon

notes/warnings

+ based only off the anime canon. spoilers for the entirety of it, right up to the end.

+ blantantly ignores the 'all humans, when they die, go to MU (nothingness)' rule. otherwise, this would be a really boring fic, since it features a bunch of dead characters. basically, the premise is that dead people either go to hell, or a world pretty much parallel to where they lived when they were alive.

+ there really aren't any OCs in this. if someone is even vaguely significant, and they seem to be an OC, they're almost definitely a character from the series in cunning disguise.

+ warning: there will be relationships, both hetrosexual and otherwise, eventually.

+ this is all probably a load of rubbish

* * *

**Demon**

It rains here, as well. Same ancient, smoke-filthy city, cars whizzing by, crime down every other alleyway. Same bitter rain. No one cares if you're alive or dead.

Only. Everyone here is dead.

The world's greatest detective stands out in the rain, almost indistinguishable from the off-white cement wall behind him, thumb pressed to his lips, watching. It could have been five years ago, still alive, waiting to die. Watching back then, always watching. There was always some secret to be found.

He admired the structure of things - when he'd arrived, when he'd first picked himself up off the sidewalk, muttering _I knew it, I knew it, how could I _- in this strange new place. Not justice, but closer. No heaven. If you hadn't done anything wrong, you wound up here. Second world. Same world.

And for everyone else - hell.

The rain pours out of the sky in sheets. The chief of police is waiting inside, ninety-seven percent chance he'll be tapping the toe of one shoe against the table leg in impatience by now.

One hundred percent chance no one will even mention the fact that he's soaked.

A team of big-time fraudsters. Already broken into three separate State Banks. There was always work to be done, even with hell filtering off the worst of them. He's already worked it out; how they're hacking the computers, carving through three feet deep of metal, and emptying the place. It's stupid and arcane, stealing gold. Sixty point four percent it's an inside job.

He hates the rain. It never seems to stop for more than a few hours.

Watari cracks the door open. He has cake in his hand and an obliging expression on his face. Same as always. L stops watching the world beyond the rooftop and ambles back inside, leaving great sloshes of water on the floor with every footstep.

In the shadows, quiet and unnoticed, something is watching _him_.

* * *

L studies the photograph in his fingertips. It's blurry with motion, a woman on a bike. Forty-five percent certain it's Wedy.

He drizzles some tea in his cup of suger and swigs. He had honestly _liked_ Wedy, although he can't really understand why she's here and not in hell. But she's definitely involved. He suspects one of her accomplices is the daughter of the CEO, but he's not willing to let anyone else in on that. Not yet.

He works best alone in his hotel room. He comes and goes when they need him. Most of the major politicians and powerbrokers all over this world have Watari's number on speed dial. He's not sure why people still respect him, given the circumstances of his death. Failure. Failure. He can almost hear Near say it from here.

He travels with a little team, who call themselves 'The L Squad' as if it's some sort of joke. Most of them know him well enough to not expect him to laugh, though. Most of them know well enough to leave him alone.

The bank has sent him hundreds of folders, all from human resources. Wedy worked there three years ago, under the name Jane Dovsky. L wonders how much she stole from them at the time.

His hand blindly finds cake as he pulls another folder off the pile. He's depressed again, not because he's stuck on the case, but because every case feels the same, with only a change of location to brighten things up. He'll do this until he dies here, and then in the next world, if there's a next world. Over and over.

L reaches for a second folder and the whole pile collapses onto his desk. He clumsily grabs a fistful as they spill onto the floor.

_Four am. He needs sleep, at least a few hours. _

L steps over the mess halfway and freezes, arms flung out wildly for balance, one foot thrown out in front of him. He stares down at the floor.

Something is there that definitely ought not to be there.

Reflexively, L picks it up and inspects it.

* * *

"Watari," L says politely. He's eating breakfast. It's one in the afternoon, but no one questions a genius, apparently.

"Yes?"

L chews his pastry carefully, frowning.

"You did extensive research into the three Golden Grail banks?"

It's not a necessary question, L knows that he did. He's becoming superfluous, nothing to do.

"You have my reports on all three, L," Watari replies gently.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," L tells him. "However, I have one more question. Did you ever find anything to suggest that there were any murders or suicides connected with the robberies?"

Watari stares at him.

"Not at all," he says. "Do you suspect something?"

L hands him the book, wrapped in a brown paper bag.

"I don't know," he says honestly. "Can you please burn this for me?"

There haven't been any suspicious deaths, so it isn't evidence of anything. And if someone _was_ using it, then best to be rid of it. He can't launch an investigation base on evidence but no crime. Besides, it's almost certainly got nothing to do with the bank robbery.

And most of all, L just wants it gone. He'd hoped to never see another one of those things again.

No one else needs to know. Watari won't look inside the package.

"Of course," he says diffidently. "Anything else?"

"That is all," L tells him, checking over his shoulder for no reason at all, really.

* * *

Even when it stops raining, the light is dim, filtered through the crowds, painting the whole room a sickly grey. L has almost no furniture in his office, just a chair, a desk, and three computers. The rest is strewn with paper, pens, and dirty dishes.

L sets down his fifth cup of tea but keeps the spoon in his mouth. He shifts uncomfortably on his seat; the cushion isn't sitting right. The CEO wants a result. His daughter is a girl named Emmeline; curly hair, twenty-six, frightened of responsibility, openly gay. No apparent motive to sabotage her father, but they're still digging up information on her. They're all working. R and N are casually mingling at a coffee shop where Emmeline frequents. M is ploughing the internet trying to find contact details for Wedy. And T is...well. Trying. In both senses of the world.

"Heyy, Ryuuzaki -"

"It's just L, now, thank you."

"Oh, right. Listen, I just went down to the bakery, and-"

L tears his gaze away from the computer screen and glares at the young man cluttering his doorway.

"Which bakery?" he asks softly. "The one on Lleyton Street?"

There's no reason to go so far, there are a whole string of places to eat on the bottom level of the building. Lleyton Street is a few suburbs away.

"Er...yeah. It has the best cakes! I'm sure you already know that."

L knows that it doesn't, but he also knows that M's research revealed that a J Dovsky worked there as a cakemaker three years ago. And he knows T knows that.

"Have I warned you before about doing investigations on your own, T?" he asks quietly.

"I wasn't! I swear! Althouh, you won't believe this, the owner did just happen to mention that he remembered Dovksy, and thought _he_ was a great guy! So it _can't _have been Wedy!"

They all have one-letter aliases. They've all been dead once before, after all, most of them murdered in one way or another because of the Kira case. They all know it pays to be careful. So they stick to the aliases, most of them time. Only L knows everyone's real name. But T is hopeless at remembering his own nickname, and has revealed his own identity by mistake so many times L is certain that if anyone had intended to kill him that way, they'd have done it by now.

"_Matsuda_," L snaps. "I will remove you from my team if you do these things without telling me."

The man whimpers, and mutters an apology. L goes back to ignoring him. It only takes him four minutes and thirty-eight seconds to leave, which means he's improving in the hint-taking department.

L has his own reasons for keeping Matsuda around. For one, he is the only team member who survived the entire Kira case to the end.

L shifts on his seat again, annoyed. The cushion slips beneath his bare feet, as if there's something between it and the chair. L gives up, gets up, and yanks it aside.

He presses his fingers to his mouth. No. Watari burned it. L saw it burn. There's no way it can be here again.

He should be intrigued, but he's not. He picks up the book with a hand that's slightly paler than it ought to be. There's no mistaking it.

He doesn't open it. He shoves it under his shirt.

He'll burn it himself, this time.

* * *

They have in incinerator in the downstairs lab. L goes by himself, at two in the morning. He's uncomfortable. Not worried, but not happy. Either someone in the building is giving him this, as a trap or as some ill-natured joke, or...

L snaps his head over his shoulder quickly. Nothing. The room is empty. Nothing in the shadows.

But maybe that doesn't mean anything. Occasionally, over the past few weeks, he's felt a sudden and unwarranted prickly sensation, like someone was watching him. He was fascinated, at first, by the notion that anyone could presume to spy on _him_, but that ended when this thing showed up.

L inspects it. It's different to the ones he saw when he was still alive. The leather looks new, the silver writing still shiny.

It might still be a fake. There could be lots of fakes. It might still be a prank, after all. There's no reason to believe it's the same one as before. Someone might just have given him an identical copy after he got rid of the first.

Carefully, L opens the Death Note and takes a pen out of his pocket, clicking it with his thumb. All of the pages are blank as he flicks through them. He turns to the inside of the back cover, thinking.

The rules are the same, except for the ones M and T reported as being fake. Nothing new. He knows how it works.

When he holds the pen over the paper, there's a sudden rush of anticipation that seems to whirl through the room. Something is waiting to see what he'll do. L looks up.

"Show yourself," he says to the air.

Nothing happens.

L draws a picture of a cupcake on the bottom corner of the back cover, and throws the whole thing into the incinerator.

* * *

The next night, he finds it under his pillow. There's no charring on it, no scorch marks, no damage. When he turns to the back cover, his drawing is there.

It's the same one. A taunt.

If he can't get rid of it, someone else will find it. If someone else finds it...

"What do you want?" he asks the shadows.

They don't respond, but he feels eyes on the back of his neck no matter which way he turns.

* * *

L carries the Death Note with him everywhere, strapped to his stomach. His shirt is baggy, and he's used it to conceal things before. No one suspects anything, he's ninety-eight percent certain.

He's out on surveillance with R in an upmarket restaurant. N is posing as an aspiring thief, on a business meeting with Emmeline.

"You know," R says sadly, "there are times when I really wish we'd both left this job and settled down and had kids."

"I had thought that was your plan," L agrees. "What happened?"

"We tried it for a while," he states simply. "We weren't happy."

No one is happy.

"I'm glad you're both working with me," L says, a meaningless platitude, what's expected. R will buy it, N wouldn't have. He's not bothered by the fact that they're married. R's emotionally intuitive, and N is a brilliant agent. Both useful.

"I'm not glad right now," R snarls. "There's some _hussy_ in there hitting on my _wife_."

"And your wife is doing an excellent job of reeling her in," L muses. They're on audio in the car. N is sucking up to Emmeline beautifully.

"I know," R says grudgingly. "I just don't like it. The whole deep undercover thing. Not for her. I guess I'm still a bit new to this particular brand of intelligence."

L gallantly doesn't make a joke about Matsuda and _all_ brands of intelligence. T and M are at base in the sound room, and can here everything that goes on in the car.

"So, with your brains, you'll surely take over your father's business?" N asks, sounding enthralled and utterly innocuous. L is somewhat proud of her.

He glances in the rearview mirror. There's nothing in the back of the car.

There's nothing in the back of the car.

* * *

The thing is, there has to be a god of death attached to the notebook. That's an absolute certainty. Ninety-nine point three percent. And it's eighty one percent certain that a Shinigami is what keeps thrusting it back into L's possession. His office is almost impossible to enter undetected when he isn't there, and there was no possibly motivation for any human to want to give him something that could ultimately be used to kill them.

So, a Shinigami.

But why? And how could he possibly work out the motivation of a creature like that, when had had no understanding of its feelings or values? Ryuk had only ever seemed to want to have fun. So, was that it? Entertainment? Making him live with the one thing he was frightened of, and sit back and watch?

He was stronger than that. He wouldn't be entertaining, he'd be as boring as possible, just a man with a book strapped to his chest. Eventually the thing would show itself, and he could work out what it wanted. Maybe get rid of it for good. There must be other ways to kill a god of death outside of the whole falling in love thing. He'd work it out.

Dammit, why did these things have to exist? Humans were easy. Humans made _sense_.

He stares straight up at the ceiling, and kicks the covers off his feet. It's definitely watching him.

He says nothing.

* * *

Wedy calls him two days later, on a Saturday. They've already worked most of it out. Emmeline's father won't give her the business unless she gets married. Surprise, surprise, she can't marry anyone she wants to because it's not legal. So, she helped a gang of big time crooks hurt him a little. There's not even a frigging _motive_, beyond revenge. Emmeline won't benefit from what she's done. If her father hadn't been so adamant she had nothing to do with it and was _not_ to be investigated, they could have knocked the whole thing over in twenty four hours.

"I know what you've done," L informs her politely.

"Long time no see, honey," she croons back at him. "And I figured. Won't catch me, though."

M's tracing the call as they speak. She probably knows that, too.

"Gotta tell you something else, though," she continues. "There's a strange flu going round Osaka."

"That's really not my jurisdiction," L says, smiling. He raises his eyebrows at M, who is still typing furiously.

"I'd take another look at the statistics," Wedy tells him. "Anyway, gotta go. See you round, L."

She hangs up with a deft 'click'. L glances at M.

"Did you get her?"

"Nope."

M does what he's told, but he doesn't actually give a shit whether he lives or dies. L tries not to think about him too much. He's a huge gaping reminder of everything L's fucked up on. There are people out there whom he was completely and utterly responsible for. One of them is in hell.

He tries not to think about it too much.

Guilt decreases his powers of deduction by point eight percent.

L glances at his own reflection in the window, sallow skin, huge panda-circles under his eyes, hair askew, all pointing diagonally up and to the left. There are stains on his shirt. Offhandedly, he wonders when he last showered. Must have been a week ago. Watari usually lets him know when he starts to smell too bad, and -

Not right. L sits bolt upright. In the reflection, behind his chair, is a ten foot tower of skulls roughly arranged into the shape of a person. The topmost skull smirks at him.

L spins in his chair, almost knocking Matsuda flying. There's nothing behind him.

When he looks back into the window, even the reflection is gone.

"What's wrong?" Matsuda exclaimed. "L? Is there something there?"

L stared at the empty space.

"Not at all,' he said quietly.

* * *

It's trying to scare him. The death god appears three times more before they close the Emmeline case. L sees a wing edged with razor blades in his rearview mirror. A skull-covered monster rushes past him in a crows at the mall. N doesn't see it, she keeps talking about Wedy, clutching at his arm. They're pretending to be a couple. R's still not entirely comfortable with it.

Finally, it appears in the mirror instead of L's own reflection, when he's brushing his teeth. Up close, he can see that all the skulls are totally clean, shining white, like they've been bleached by the sun. It has some sort of robe on, and thousands of feathers cascading down from it's top skull like a bizarre wig. The inside of its rib cage appears to be on fire. L is fascinated by the way the Shinigami don't seem to abide by any known laws of biology. Or physics.

"Is that the best you can do?" he asks boredly, and turns away. He has things to do. They're packing for Kanto. Wedy's tip has a lot more meat to it than he'd expected.

Emmeline will face court next month. Her father knows the truth. Three of the little band of thieves are in jail. Everything is up to the state now.

Wedy, of course, is still at large.

L stares at his suitcase. Six neat rows of white shirts and jeans, and the one pair of shoes Watari insists he take with him, just in case. T will have five suitcases full of unnecessary things, N and R will have one overstuffed bag and grin at each other the whole trip, and M will bring his computer and the clothes on his back.

L touches the Death Note once more, still pressed flat to his chest. He has no idea how this is going to play out, and that worries him.

* * *

The case is huge. Preliminary statistics show that this flu virus is nasty, which is hardly cause for a detective, but it's also alarmingly specific in who it affects.

"Genocide?" Matsua asks, eyes wide.

"Maybe," L replies. "But please don't use that word too loudly yet."

"At any rate, I think it's better that we all stay inside the hotel," R says, always practical. "Gas masks if we're going outside."

They're stationed in a province outside of the affected area, currently there have been no reported flu-deaths in a radius of about one hundred kilometers.

"That'll be too obvious," L tells him.

"Gas masks," M echoes, hollowly, and presses his fingers to his chest. They all pretend not to notice. Even Matsuda. T. L needs to get out of the habit of calling him by his name.

"Now listen," L requests. "I need to tell you all what we _are_ going to do."

This complex is small, but it's the biggest building in the area. L has his own room, but not his own floor. He drags himself to bed and collapses, jetlagged, after two hours of playing questions-and-answers with his team. There's no need for them to draw attention to themselves. N and T should be safe anyway. R might be, as well. M would happily be a guinea pig for them, but L won't let that happen. He will have to rely on the fact that the virus probably isn't here yet.

He hasn't dealt with biological terrorism in a while. Maybe this case will be enjoyable.

L takes a bite out of an apple. He doesn't particularly like apples - not sweet enough - but he's been eating them frequently anyway. Just in case.

He stares at the room.

"So, what's your name?"

Silence.

"You must have a name. You all do, don't you?"

Silence.

"Well," L says, stretching out on the bed. "If your goal is to torment me, you're doing a very poor job. Goodnight."

L doesn't sleep straight away, although he feigns it. It's still in the building, he's certain.

If this god of death kills any member of his team, he'll have no choice but to destroy it. He's not sure how, but he'll have to.

They're all he has left. Four murders, one suicide, and they all came back to him, one by one.

* * *

In chronological order, then.

R. Raye Penber. Murdered by heart attack in the early stages of the Kira case, but not before being used to destroy everyone he worked with. His death had not been wasteful, L had learned a lot from it.

N. Naomi Penber, nee Misora. The suicide that wasn't. Forced to kill herself, even though she had been so strong. She and Raye had been waiting for L when he'd arrived. Waiting, and yet hoping he wouldn't come. Not soon. Not without Kira's head on a stick.

The first witnesses to the fact that he'd lost.

Watari died when he did, of course, practically by his side. L can't remember the last time he was without his most faithful employee. They aren't close, L doesn't feel _related_ to him, the way he sometimes erroneously thinks of N as a sister, or M as a son, but Watari is dependable. They don't really bother with the W. Even L doesn't know his first name.

M. Mail Jeevas, child genius, one of L's 'boys'. Killed four years after L, in his own words, 'filled up with holes'. He was investigating the same case, but he wasn't killed by the death note. He was never even known to Kira. A nobody.

He doesn't have emotions. He doesn't care about anyone. Not any more.

T. Touta Matsuda, was last. He won. He saw the case to the end. He was the one to shoot Kira, the one to inflict the wound that killed him. And then three months later he put a gun in his mouth. Post traumatic stress disorder.

Emotionally, the group is a train wreck, but L doesn't really care about emotions. He cares about logic and results, and more than anything else, justice.

More than anything else.

* * *

When he wakes up, it's midnight by local time, and the Shinigami is standing beside his bed. L jerks upright, heart thumping disconcertingly.

"Detective L," it says, with an unmistakeable sneer. Its voice is different to Ryuk's and Rem's. There's a hoarse quality to it. It sounds more like a harsh whisper. L thinks for a moment, then reaches into his shirt and unclips the notebook.

"I believe this is yours," he says, businesslike.

The Shinigami clasps its hands behind its back.

"Oh, no. That one is yours now. I have one of my own."

There's a nasty undertone in it's voice. It knows the difficult position the notebook has forced him into.

"I don't want it."

"Not my problem. You were the one who picked it up."

"Yes, because you kept repeatedly putting it back in my office, and my room," L says calmly. He's eighteen percent certain it wants him to get angry.

"Is that so? Hmm. You must have been destined for it, then."

L crouches on the foot of his bed and peers up at the Shinigami.

"I have no desire to kill people in this manner. Why have you brought this to me?"

It smirks at him malevolently.

"I see," L muses. "I am aware that your kind do not particularly mean to do anyone any ill, and by the same token you don't do anyone any favours. I imagine you are aware that I was killed by one of these things, yes?"

"Were you? How unfortunate."

Shinigami or no, that statement is obviously a lie. Or downright sarcasm, maybe. L hesitates.

"So, I estimate that you thought it would be amusing to force this upon someone who would most likely be frightened of it," L concludes. "Am I correct?"

The Shinigami doesn't look like it's going to answer, but he doesn't get the chance to find out for sure, because Matsuda is banging on the door and yelling that someone's just died of flu on the outskirts of town.

* * *

L doesn't let any of them leave the building, but a local officer brings them the doctor's report. L contact him by videophone afterwards.

"I can't be certain," he wheezes, and he looks and sounds far too old to be working as one of only two doctors in the whole town, "but I don't think it's the same thing. Symptoms were different."

"What was his nationality?" L asks softly.

"You think there's a link, too?" the doctor sounds surprised. "I had wondered."

"Just answer the question, please."

"He was a local. Born in Osaka. Here, I'll send you a copy of his ID."

A moment later it flashes up on the screen.

"Ken Ayai," T says out loud, unnecessarily. They can all read.

"He certainly looks Asian," N points out.

"We'll need to do some background checks to be sure," L tells the doctor. "And I need to know the results of the samples you've sent off. This is important. Send me the report, and any other documents you have on Mr Ayai."

"Will do, L," the doctor says, and then hesitates, as if he wants to say something more.

"Anything else?" M prompts, boredly.

"I...it's just. It's an honour to actually have spoken to you, L," the doctor tells him in a rush. "I've heard so much about you. My name is Nakagawa, by the way. Sam Nakagawa. My mother was from-"

_I could kill him now_, L thinks, the thought springing up unbidden into his head. _And I've never even met him before._

No one should have this sort of power. He stares at his hands, frightened. People are so forthcoming with their names and faces. No one suspects there might be Death Notes here. Not even the rest of his team.

But he can't tell them. He can't. Knowing is worse than not knowing.

He's seventy-nine percent sure.

"I'm afraid that's all we have time for," he says, cutting Nakagawa off mid-monologue. "Thank you for your cooperation."

He gets up immediately, and heads for the bathroom.

"Are you all right?" R asks him.

"Fine," L lies. "I'll be back in a moment."

* * *

L shuts the door, and presses his head against the wall. He needs a moment, that's all. He needs to splash water on his face. He's not going to be sick. He's not.

He didn't really just casually think about murdering someone he didn't know.

Only he did.

"This thing is evil," he says softly, touching the book. It's starting to feel like it weighs a tonne. Is he just going to have to keep it with him for the rest of his life?

"It's just a book," someone says behind him, in a tone of voice that indicates he's stupid for suggesting otherwise.

"It's powerful, and power corrupts humans," L tells it. "Hallo again, by the way. Shinigami."

"First you criticise my gift, and _then_ you greet me? I'm insulted."

"Your gift is nothing more than a burden."

And it damn well knows that.

"Tell me, why have you shown up again? Am I not interesting enough when left to my own devices?"

"I'd say you're not interesting enough _anyway_. Don't you even want to see if it works?"

"Of course I do," L says calmly. "But I'm not trying it out. Is that what you want?"

"The greatest detective in the world, and I'm supposed to just tell you what I want?" it asks, a note of laughter in that horrible wheezy voice. "Why don't you deduce something?"

L sticks his thumb in his mouth.

"I suspect you are not as neutral as you appear," he tells it, finally. "I suspect you want something from me, but I don't know what it is."

"And people pay you _money_ to make conclusions like that?"

L smiles. It wants is an argument? He can give it that.

"Money buys apples," he points out, although he's not sure this one particularly cares about apples. He slants a look at it. "Do Shinigami reproduce, I wonder?"

It stares at him, nonplussed.

"What?"

L ambles over to the sink to wash his hands, turning his back on it. It's obviously not in a hurry to kill him.

"I deduce by your appearance, and your attitude, that you are probably either very young or very high ranking, if either such a thing exists."

"Oh?"

He's got no idea which it is, though. Fifty-fifty. That will never do.

"You seem to be quite at home in the human world, indicating you've been here many times before, or that you are adaptable. You are also very clean, and this note appears new. So, which is it?"

It tilts its head and gives no answer.

Young? Yes, he would like to believe it is young. Being followed around by a child of death seems much more appealing than a fully qualified god. He can almost certainly outsmart a child.

Seventy...eight percent?

"Yes, I think you are a child," he says softly. "You seem adaptable, but at times almost incompetent. The way you stalked me, at first, for example. I barely noticed, and when I did, I barely cared."

It watches him. It can't make expressions, of course, with only a skull for a head, but he's sure it narrows its eyes at him.

"To be honest, I'm ashamed," L adds for effect, wiping off his hands. "I've always thought of myself to be something of a genius. I should attract the attention of the great Shinigami, if any. And yet, all I've warranted is you. Fledgling. Not even lost your down feathers yet."

He sighs and kicks his feet.

"Anyway, I've got better things to do. You can follow me, if you'd like. I don't mind."

He pushes the door open, and everyone in the room immediately pretends they weren't talking about him. Quite believably, too, if he does say so himself. Except for Matsuda, who flushes and waves like an idiot.

"Did I miss anything," he asks, and it's not something he'd usually say, but it's intended for the one person in the room who won't know that.

"Oh, yeah," M deadpans. "While you were taking a piss, we worked out the entire Kanto flu case, and arrested all the perpetrators. Sorry."

"Do you _have_ to use that language?" N asks, tugging at her hair.

The Shinigami whirls past him, blocking his view of his team, invisible to everyone else. L watches it out of the corners of his eyes.

If it's insulted, it's probably a high ranker. If it laughs at him, it's probably a child. The odds would increase in either direction by twenty two percent.

But it just stares, unblinkingly and with guile, totally unruffled by his challenge, and L thinks it knows exactly what he's trying to do.

Fuck, it's intelligent. This is no Ryuk-level Shinigami. This one is high ranking. Definitely high-ranking. L has worked it out, after all.

Everyone else in the room is still talking. It hovers over N. She blinks and shakes her head, and for a moment L wonders wildly if she can see it.

But no.

"Does piss even count as a swear word?" Matsuda asks the others loudly, as if it's the most important question in the world. "I mean, as a really really bad one? Obviously it's not something you'd say in front of your grandmother."

"Why don't you shut the fuck up?" M asks casually. "I'm trying to concentrate."

The Shinigami melts into the background, disappearing from sight. L doesn't feel any better for it.

And he still doesn't know what it wants, but he's starting to suspect it's something more than just entertainment.

* * *

The death count goes up, as does the hospital count. The unnerving trend continues. No one of Asian background seems to fall ill. It's undoubtedly suspicious.

L examines the reports of those in hospital. They're all quarantined in a remote location. All foreign medical staff have been forbidden from working there for their own protection. The average time between symptoms and death is forty-four hours. So far, no one has survived past fifty hours.

One of the names in the 'hospitalised' list jumps out at L. Anna Simpson, an English businesswoman. He can see her face, blonde curly hair. He can't remember why he knows who she is, though.

"It's got to be an attempt at genocide, surely," T says, looking up at L, still trying desperately to prove that he's a valuable member of the team.

L wishes he'd stop trying. But then, he also wishes that R would stop getting so inconveniently jealous any time he sent N on surveillance missions without him. And that M would stop wearing only black and start eating again and return to some semblance of the happy kid L imagines he used to be.

Wishing is such an impractical thing.

"We can't rule out natural immunity at this stage," L tells him offhandedly. "It's possible there's just a genetic resistance in people of Mongoloid descent. Have we got the virus analysis from the lab, yet?"

"There's a problem with that," R says through gritted teeth. "They're not sending it."

L can't say he's surprised.

"What happened?"

"They don't trust anyone, at the minute. Too scared of terrorists."

"_What_?" T yells, flinging his arms up. "That's absurd. We aren't terrorists! He's _L_!"

"They are correct to be cautious," L murmurs. Another two deaths flash up on the computer screen. He's eating cherry pie today. Decent cake is hard to come by, out here.

"In any case, if Mats...if T's theory is correct, then only two of us are at risk."

He gestures between M and himself. N and T are both Japanese-born, and R is half Japanese.

"Which means we can still conduct surveillance!" T says brightly.

"I'll go, too," M offers. "Then we can see if this theory is true. I don't mind."

"_I_ mind," L tells him. "At this stage, I don't want anyone going into Kanto. I want the three of you to take a trip back to America."

"America? Why?"

"Because that's where the reference laboratory for this case is," N says, taking a sip of her tea, clever as always. L nods approvingly.

"Watari has already made the arrangements. Your plane leaves at three. Bring back all the computer data you can find. M's narrowed down the location of the relevant files, but we can't hack all the way into the system to get the information."

He looks directly at T.

"While the others are in the lab, I want you to go undercover. And you'll be going blond again. A reporter called Mark McMinnon."

He pushes the fake ID across the desk. Matsuda inspects it.

"Wow! I look cute."

"Try to stay on topic, will you?" R says crossly. "You'd be better off memorising the name of the newspaper your supposedly working for."

"Oh, right."

"N, you're in charge of the group until you get back," L tells her without preamble. "Also, you should know that I've designated _you_ to be the next L should anything happen to me."

The teacup smashes onto the floor, brown liquid staining the white rug. L stares at it.

"Oh, I. Um. I understand," she says, hands shaking, obviously disconcerted. "Yes. Gosh, I've made a mess. Sorry."

T stares at him with wide eyes. M looks visibly relieved, although he doesn't drag his gaze away from the computer screen. R grabs L by the collar and hauls him out of his chair.

"_Nothing_ he snarls, "is going to happen to _you_."

As of last week, L wears a white undershirt tucked into his jeans. It has an almost negligible effect in his ability to think, but it covers the book strapped to his chest. He's profoundly glad of it right now.

"Be reasonable, Raye," he says softly. "We're all capable of dying."

This place wasn't eternity. It wasn't heaven. It was just life, take two.

"Not _you_," R spits. "You're the one we're all here for. Heck, three of us _died_ trying to help you. You need to survive. You shouldn't be making plans about _who'll be the next L_, you need to be working out a way _we_ can keep _this_ L."

L stares at him for a moment. Over his shoulder, he can see the Shinigami laughing.

"I understand," he says softly. "I will be careful."

R lets him go, and he drops gracefully back into his chair.

"Good. So you should be."

The fact that N didn't at any point try to stop him speaks her own agreement. L wonders if they're right to invest so much of their lives in him. He's already failed once.

And now he's concealing a death note from them.

"If no one else has anything to say," L tells them, "we should really get started."

* * *

"So tell me, L, how _did_ you die?"

"Tell me what you want from me, first," L whispers, without looking around.

He thinks the Shinigami probably likes the idea that he was killed by a death note. It's the only real effect they can have on the world, after all. Job satisfaction. Maybe that's all it wants. For him to break down and scream and beg for it to be taken away.

But he can't have it taken away. As long as it's with him, no one else can use it. It's his. The world is safe. He'll just have to deal with the hovering menace.

It's quiet without the other three. Watari almost escapes notice, popping in occasionally to bring him cake and take away dirty dishes. M sits at the other end of the room, typing furiously, headphones in his ears. He's started smoking inside, too, since N isn't around to berate him for it.

Anna Simpson, Anna Simpson. L sifts through the flight records for all planes arriving in Japan over the past few weeks. It's such a damnably common name that it makes any investigation cumbersome, and no photograph search brings up any picture that matches the face of the woman in hospital.

M gets up and kicks his chair back into place. L turns around at the movement, surprised. Maybe he's run out of cigarettes again.

M heads for the door.

"Where are you-"

"It's Sunday," he says, thickly. "Church."

L blinks.

"I thought I told you we couldn't leave the building."

M watches him evenly. He got rid of the goggles when he first arrived, but his eyes are more obscure now, naked, than they ever were behind tinted plastic. They show nothing. Empty.

_It's not going to help,_ L thinks. _Going to church on behalf of someone who's already in hell._

"And I've told you, I go every Sunday. Without fail. See you in two hours or so."

L doesn't push it. You can't push M. He's always about two seconds from snapping, anyway.

"Please be careful," he says instead. "Call me if you see anything suspicious."

M shrugs, possibly in agreement, and leaves. He looks strange, sickly green hair and sickly white skin, emaciated, all in black. He's never been kicked out of a church, though, so L supposes the purported Christian ideal of accepting everybody has some grain of reality to it.

He's not sure how people can come here and still have religion. They _know_ what happens after you die, because it's happening to them.

"Would you like me to tell you who that woman in hospital is?" the death god asks.

"Yes," L says, turning back to his screen, pushing the M-associated guilt out of his mind and turning his focus back to the task at hand.

"Well, I w-"

"I know you won't."

"But I could."

"Yes, I know you could. Don't you have anything slightly more interesting to say?" L asks, blandly. "Here, have some cake. It's better than apples. I don't like them, either."

"No thanks, I'll just watch you flounder incompetently while hundreds of people drop dead."

L flinches inwardly, but he doesn't let it show. Damn it.

An Anna Simpson arrived in Kanto three days ago, on a plane that landed just after midnight. She paid with cash. Suspicious.

L pushes his entire palm against his mouth. Simpson. England. Wasn't there...?

Something important.

He hates relying on his memory. It's so imprecise.

Feeling useless, he googles 'Simpson, business' and filters the search to results from the United Kingdom only.

"Of course," he mutters, staring at the screen results. "Simpson, Jones and Clay."

"The lawyers?"

L glances at the death god from the corner of his eyes.

"You know them? How?"

"Well -"

"No, don't tell me. I don't want to know," L says decisively, his mind racing.

He'd dealt with the law firm two years ago, when he'd interviewed them as possible suspects in a nasty serial killer case. They'd been innocent, L had found the real killers that same week, but they'd had very dodgy dealings, and L knew they were connected with some of the nastier members of Britain's underworld.

Hayden Simpson was the most senior partner at the firm. He had two daughters, Ellie and...Anna.

And now Anna had possibly been struck down by terrorists.

"This is going to get big," L says, awed. He reaches for the phone to contact the others, but it rings before he gets it, and he snatches it out of the receiver, dangling it from his thumb and index finger as always.

"This is Watari."

"What is it?"

"I have a message for you. The man gave his name as Anchor, requesting a meeting. In person. Right now. He's waiting on the line. We're also out of cake, but that can wait."

_Out of cake,_ L thinks. _That means something is wrong._

"Put him on," he says, and the line clicks through.

"What do you want?" L asks quietly.

"I just want to make a point," the voice says on the other end of the line. It's filtered, just like L's is. "You need to come and see this."

"Where are you?"

"You are staying in Hillside Hotel, on floor seven."

"That's not what I asked."

"_We_ are on floor six."

"I see," L says, mind racing. Even if they've got the whole floor, he and Watari should be able to escape through the windows. Is this Anchor character stupid enough to just try and surround him?

"Funny thing about floor six. There are lots of explosives down here. You wouldn't want anyone to get _angry_."

L has plenty of enemies, but they rarely manage to get so close to him. A message flashes up on the computer screen from Watari.

_Will we leave by the roof, L?_

"I would hate for anyone to get angry," L agrees. "Why don't you tell me what you do want."

"Well," maybe-Anchor drawls, "I'd like someone to take this green-haired kid we've got her off my hands, but if you're thinking of just running away, I guess we'll have to kill him."

L's blood runs cold. He hates it. He should never, ever, ever have let anyone he was emotionally attached to become a part of his team.

"Or alternatively, you could come down here in the next three minutes and maybe things won't turn out like that. Come alone. Wear a gas mask."

He sends a message back to Watari, hands trembling slightly.

_They have M. I have to go down there_. _You know what to do._

_

* * *

_

L wires every room with explosives, always, wherever he stays. It's something only he and Watari know about. If things get bad, L presses his belt four times. Watari is to get out and detonate. The last thing L wants is to be in a hostage situation. Not with the amount he knows. He's resistant to torture - has trained himself to be - but there are chemical ways of getting people to say things they shouldn't.

This Anchor character clearly wants him alive for something.

The stairway is empty when he leaves the hotel room, save for one innocuous-looking Japanese girl standing on the next landing.

"Mr L," she says politely. She's an employee of the hotel, or so he thought. She's brought them room service.

Someone's planned this very well. L is impressed.

"This way, please."

She leads him down to the next floor and nods at him once before pushing the door open. There are two ways in and out of every room, not including the windows. She can't see his face through the gas mask, but L has to wonder why they asked him to wear it.

Forty eight percent chance that -

Inside the room are people in suits. A blonde man sitting behind a desk. Two men with black hair stand either side of the door, clearly ready to grab him if needed. A woman with red hair stands to the left. A bald man and an elderly looking woman stand next to a wooden chair, the only thing that's not part of the hotel furniture. M is attached to the chair by metal cuffs that fasten around his hands, feet, waist and forehead. He raises his eyebrows at L.

He's the only one in the room not wearing a gas mask.

Seventy two percent, L thinks. They've got him.

"You shouldn't have come," M says languidly. "That was silly."

"Which one of you is Anchor?" L asks quietly. The blonde man laughs harshly.

"You have a voice filter built into your mask? I'm impressed, L."

"As am I," L tells him, honestly. "You've gone to quite a lot of trouble to ... make your point, was it? You weren't here yesterday, I know that."

He checked the hotel records. The people living down here yesterday moved out quickly and at an odd hour of the evening. A vast sum of money also showed up in their bank account from an unknown source.

But the good news is, that means these people haven't seen anyone's face except M's.

"The stakes are high, L," blonde man continues. "You see, a _lot_ of people are dying from this flu virus, and you don't seem to be doing anything about it."

"I am working hard on the case," L tells them. "I too am concerned by the deaths."

There's a metal canister on the floor, next to the desk. Condensation is forming on the sides.

"See, we've been working hard too," the elderly woman tells him. "Only we've actually _found_ things."

"What things?"

"Well, you see," bald man tells him, "we've been trackin' the movements of this bug, and it seems it can be traced back to one particular university in Kanto."

L attemtps to stick his thumb in his mouth, forgetting he's wearing the mask.

"Interesting. But this doesn't really prove anything, university is a hub for many people, including those that have travelled overseas. This doesn't even give us evidence that the virus has been made intentionally."

"Goodness me, you _have_ been lazy," redhead chirps. "You hadn't even gotten that far?"

"I refuse to jump to conclusions," L tells her. "I find _that_ to be lazy."

"What _I_ find interesting is the way the only foreigners alive in that university all worked in one particular laboratory," blonde man continues.

L stares at him.

"I see."

"Four men," he tells L, and pushes an envelope across the table. "Here is the research. _You_ need to find out who they are and why they survived. And then you need to stop this thing. You have just over twenty-four hours."

There's a national ban on people of non-Asian descent entering the Kanto region. The information is important, doubtlessly, but L needs the others back before he can investigate the four survivors.

"Regrettably, I don't know if it will be that soon," he tells them. "But I'll try."

L hears two distinct _clicks_, and he knows the thugs at the door just turned their guns on him. As expected.

"What did I tell you?" the redhead demanded. "He's _lazy_."

"I am not -"

"Do you know why we were able to come up with this information, Mr L?" the bald man asks softly.

"Because you jumped to conclusions."

"Because we are _motivated_," he snaps. "And do you know _why_ we are motivated?"

_Business?_ L wonders. _These people have invested in the Japanese tourist industry? _

"Because this is personal," redhead finishes. "Someone I love very much is dying from this _thing_ while you're screwing around!"

Anna Simpson. Of course. So that's what this was all about. Simpson's friends moved fast.

She picks up the canister, smiles sweetly, and unscrews the lid.

"From the quarantine ward in Kanto," she tells him. "Now, maybe you'll be motivated, _L._"

* * *

L squats on his chair, clutching his head in his hands.

M is in his own room, tucked into bed at L's orders. He's on a drip, even though he swears right and left that he feels fine. Watari is watching him.

He's called the others and told them everything. They're on the next available flight, but that'll mean they still don't get here until morning. He needs to get into Kanto. He can't pass for Asian. He's got the dark hair, but it's too coarse, his skin is pale, and his eyes are wrong. There's no real viable way to fix that. There are guards at every train station, every bus stop, and every road into the district.

There has to be a way in. Someone must owe him a favour.

"We need to talk," the Shinigami says, hoisting itself onto the desk, blocking his view of the computer screen.

"No," L says firmly. "I need to think."

He needs to be in Kanto in a maximum of twelve hours in order to find out whatever it was that allowed those four people to survive, and to find a way to distribute whatever it is to the rest of the region.

And to Mail.

N and R had done a good job. The American labs had identified the virus as being a likely bioterrorist agent, unlike any naturally occurring strain of the flu, but they hadn't identified any possibilities for prevention or cure. The chance that they would over the next couple of days is less than two percent.

It's up to him. It is all up to him.

"No, now," it says with unmistakable malice. "You see, it just happens that the king has ordered me to tell you this right _now_."

"My protege is dying," L tells it, rushing through websites, transport guides, maps of the district, looking for something and anything. "I'm not listening to you."

It's been waiting. It's been waiting for him to be in a difficult position. It grabs him by the shoulder, the hard bones of its hand freezing against his skin. L throws it off irritably. This is too important.

"I can write his name down in my own note right now, if you'd prefer," it leers, a direct threat.

L stares up at it, defeated and angry.

"_What_," he hisses, "do you _want_?"

It crosses its legs.

"Well, that's more like it. Sit down."

Very very slowly, L pulls his legs out from under himself. It feels strange and disconcerting, to sit like an ordinary person. This thing knows exactly what it's doing.

"You have five minutes," he says, trying to keep his voice pleasant.

The Shinigami rubs its hands together, clearly pleased. In that second, L dearly wishes he could write _its_ name in the book.

Mail Mail Mail Mail Mail.

"So, congratulations, the death note is yours, and I'm obligated to answer anything you ask me about the rules of the note. I suspect you already know some of them, however."

It pauses, looking at him with amusement.

"I do," L says. "Please continue."

"You are also correct in assuming it has been given to you specifically, and for a reason. Most death notes are the property of whoever finds them, but _you_, Lawliet, are _special_.

L jolts.

"My name," he mutters. Of course it knows his name. The eyes.

He checks his watch. Fifty-two seconds have passed. Every muscle in his body is coiled. He needs this to be over.

"Why am I special?"

"Oh, come off it, you've always thought you were special," it says. "I can tell that just by looking at you. That's why the Shinigami king sent me."

"Who are you in the Shinigami world?" L asks, although he's already seventy-one percent sure.

It inclines its head slightly.

"The king is old," it tells him. "He's getting tired. He'd like a more quiet life."

L eyes it.

"The heir to the king?" he asks.

"At your service," it says, with a malevolent grin and a little bow. "You can call me Rae."

"Right," L says quickly. "Where do I come into this?"

"Anyone who wishes to be king must first prove themselves," it tells him brightly.

L feels his heart plummet into his stomach.

"What do you have to do?"

"The king makes ridiculous rules, really," Rae says, kicking at the carpet. "It seems almost unfair that I have to tell you."

Two minutes and eight seconds have passed. L twitches. He can't thinking sitting like this.

"I'll become king when I can convince L Lawliet to use the notebook to kill at least one healthy person who is not on death row," Rae says dramatically, gesturing at the air. "That's how it is."

L stares. It makes sense. He's known for his sense of justice. To test the strength of a Shinigami, pit them against someone who cannot be easily influenced.

But what a thing to do. Either the god loses, or wins by utterly destroying the human. These gods, they had no concept of the value of life. Of people. Humans aren't _toys_.

"So, how about it?"

"No," L says, getting to his feet. He's wasted over three minutes. "I will never do that."

"How weak of you. You understand you could use the note to save people like poor little Jeevas, right?"

L doesn't take the bait.

"How long do you have in order to convince me?" L asks, the last question.

"Five years."

Five years. L tries to focus on working out the logistics of sneaking into the luggage compartment of a freight train, and on resisting the fleeting but powerful urge to scream.

* * *

tbc


	2. Bang

notes/warnings

+ still probably a load of rubbish.

* * *

**Bang**

L presses his chin into his knee. It's not particularly comfortable, but there aren't a lot of other positions he can maintain. He barely fits in the crate as it is.

The university receives a daily delivery of food for the cafeteria, by truck. According to all documentation, L is just another load of neatly-stacked 500mL cartons of milk. He's sealed the crate from the inside, screws he can remove in a hurry when the time comes.

No one examines the contents of a delivery truck too closely. It was M who had come up with the idea.

M has started to cough, according to the latest text message from Watari. L bites his lip.

"Is this the most demeaning thing you've ever done?" Rae asks, poking its head through the side of the crate. L flinches at the sight of it.

Five years. Is it honestly not going to leave him alone?

"I dried a serial killer's feet once," L says softly, barely a whisper, such a bad memory. "No more talking. I need to be careful."

Rae is quiet for almost a minute.

"Well, you _do_ know the names of the driver, the inspector at the checkpoint, _and_ the two women who are receiving the shipment," it says thoughtfully. "I'd say you could get out of any situation with no trouble. Oh, but wait. You're too scared to use the note. What a pity. Mail will just have to die."

L gives it his most withering look. M is not dying.

He hasn't brought a disguise, only a fake ID. No one knows his face anyway, he's always been very careful. The others board their flight in three hours, but there have already been warnings it might be delayed. He's on his own.

That's all right. He can work alone. He prefers it, even.

Which is just as well, because the police are refusing to cooperate. They're not hindering him, per se, but they've essentially said their hands are tied. The rest of the country doesn't trust him, so neither can they.

"No one is going to be listening for voices in the back of a van," Rae says disparagingly. "We won't be there for half an hour. Can't we talk about _something_?"

L regards it for a moment.

"I suppose. What do you wish to talk about?"

The Shinigami plops down next to him, so that exactly half of it is visible beyond the wall of the crate. L edges away as much as he can, repulsed by it now that he knows what it wants. It never bothered him when he thought it was just an impartial marionette made of bones and feathers.

"You're a very accepting person, aren't you," it says sardonically. "Happy to sit silently in a crate for two hours. Happy to let good people die because you're frightened of stopping the evil ones."

"I don't let good people die!" L snaps. "I bring justice, as much as I possible can, and I do things the _right_ way!"

He's yelling by the end and the truck stops dead. L freezes.

"Whoops," Rae says, grinning. "Now what have you done?"

He hears the front door open, and feels the weight of the truck shift slightly under his feet. He has splinters from crouching on the rough wooden crate floor. Damn that Shinigami.

Footsteps, and then the back of the truck is slammed open. Sunlight floods through the cracks in the wood. L doesn't dare breathe.

A rational person will not look in the crates. The truck driver has no reason to be suspicious.

"Oy," he says gruffly. "Show yourself!"

"Here I am," Rae says brightly, next to L's right ear. It feigns a wave with one massive, bony hand in the general direction of where the driver is probably standing

L doesn't respond, of course.

"Rats," the driver snarls after a few long moments drag past. "I'll have to get the whole thing treated again on the weekend."

They're plunged into darkness. A moment later the motor starts up, and L breathes again.

* * *

"If you only wish to encourage me to use this notebook, then I'll ignore you," L stipulates, after a good fifteen minutes of baleful silence. "If you really want a conversation, talk about something neutral."

Rae crosses its arms behind its skull. The Shinigami is lying on the floor, with only it's neck and head visible to L.

"All right," it says calmly, apparently thinking. "Hm. Why do you keep the idiot around?"

It's a fairly obscurely-worded question, but L knows exactly who Rae is referring to.

"Matsuda is a part of the team," he states simply. He pulls a boiled sweet out of his back pocket and chews on it.

"I can see that, but why? He is deficient in both intelligence and common sense, surely."

L wiggles his toes. He's starting to cramp in inconvenient places. He'll need to be able to move quickly when they arrive.

"I'd be interested to hear what _you_ think about Matsuda, actually," he says.

"What I think?"

"Well, yes. Being a member of the royalty of your kind, I presume you would think of him as... entertainment," L tells it. "Or do Shinigami kings not have fools?"

"You consider him to be a jester?" Rae asks, with a mirthful snort. "That makes sense."

"No," L replies. "I just wanted to know if _you_ did. Why do you think I keep Matsuda around?"

He starts to pick the splinters out of his feet. It's difficult, in the low light. A challenge. There's a tarp next to him that he could squat on instead, but he'd prefer to have his bare feet as close to the ground as possible.

"Well, I think it coincides with my own theory. You're frightened of being too successful," the Shinigami says dismissively. "Therefore, your team consists of two competent agents, a psychopath, and a clown."

L remains silent.

"But Touta Matsuda is by far the most useless," Rae continues. "He's a risk to everyone around him. He clearly can't be trusted to follow an order, he thinks he knows better than you, he makes grave mistakes even when he's apparently _trying_ to do what you've told him, and to be honest, I'm wondering whether he's actually a double agent."

L snorts.

"You think _Matsuda_ is betraying me? And here I thought you were fairly knowledgeable about humans."

Rae shrugs.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," it tells him, and then grins. "You know how to get rid of him, anyway."

"I am not," L pronounces carefully, "getting rid of _anyone_."

It's the eighteenth time he's had to say it in the past four hours, and Rae is starting to get on his nerves.

* * *

Eight minutes later, Watari sends him a message.

_M stable. 3 minutes._

L nods. Watari is tracking the progress of the truck. They're about to arrive. He pulls the screwdriver out of his pocket and starts to neatly disassemble the top of his crate.

"What are you doing?" Rae asks with interest. "Trying to get caught?"

L hoists off the lid and stands up in one graceful movement. The roof is just high enough that he can stand in his usual posture without grazing his head. All around him are stacked crates identical to the one he's been travelling in, and a few larger cartons and packages covered with tarp.

He pulls a cap out of his pocket and jams it onto his head. He grabs his own tarp out of the crate and drops it on the floor.

"I see," Rae says, surveying the place. "Very clever."

L nods. Then he picks up the empty crate and hoists it over the others, placing it down gently as far from the door as possible. He repositions the lid on top, so that it doesn't look out of place. Then he squats down against the wall, away from the entrance, with one knee up and one knee down and an arm thrown over his head. He's already worked the position out - his body will throw a shape that looks conceivably like a bundle of perishable goods.

He pulls the tarp over himself with his free hand and waits.

The door opens. He hears male and female voices - the driver and the receivers. The driver is still grumbling about rats. They each grab one of the frontmost crates.

Exactly as predicted.

L waits twenty seconds, pulls off the tarp, throws it to the back of the truck, and hops out.

"Oh, no way," Rae sneers. "That was far too easy. They didn't even look back."

L nods. He has a gun strapped to his stomach, and a cap that says "Idia pathology courier". Students are milling past. No one pays him much attention as he ambles around to the front of the cafeteria.

He's in.

* * *

M sends him a message that says _still alive. _One corner of L's mouth curves up slightly. A girl with pigtails and too many books bumps into him and says 'oh, sorry' before rushing off. Everyone around him is busy, bustling. The campus is huge, the buildings stretch seemingly up into the sky. The walls are marble, shiny and cold. There's litter on the ground, skittering around as the wind blows. It isn't raining yet, but the sky is dark and the air feels heavy and moist.

L never really studied in university, the same way he never really went to school. He had always been considered too much of a genius to mix with people is own age. His eyes pick out a couple making out behind a tree, a group of young men stressing about an exam next to the library, a girl doing her makeup using a parked car as a mirror. L wonders idly what it would be like to have a normal life. To be nobody.

Well, he'd be free of Rae, for a start.

The laboratory in question is in the South building, basement level. Viral research lab 3A. He has photographs of the men he's looking for. Two are European, one is south African, and another has a history that's difficult to trace, but he's definitely Caucasian. L thinks he might be from Australia, originally.

Of course, they're not more important than the rest of the staff. They're just the markers. The whole lab must be involved, somehow.

Only those with less than twenty-five percent Asian ancestry are affected, according to M's calculations.

They're calling the killing influenza strain 'flu-x'. L thinks it sounds like something Near would have come up with. And then Mello would have shoute-

Never mind about that.

There will be lots of security. There's no way L will be able to sneak in, not without help. But he's got no intention of sneaking in unnoticed. The laboratory deals with a pathology company called Idia. They send viral samples twice a day by courier. Thankfully, the heads of Idia had not been coy about sharing the information they knew, once they had realised they were dealing with L.

"We've been keeping a close eye on all samples that could potentially be used as bioterrorism agents," Professor Mae Aizawa had told him, "but of course, nothing is even close to the genotype of this awful flu-x. This particular laboratory is, to our knowledge, working towards making vaccinations for some of the ordinary strains of influenza. Usually injectable, although they were experimenting with mucosal delivery a few months ago."

Aizawa. L wonders if she's related.

Of course, no laboratory would be stupid enough to send off samples of the specimen they're using to commit genocide, but it does give him a way in. L takes out his ID card. Ryan Seeto. Temporary Idia courier, usually works in data collection. One quarter Japanese, just enough.

It's still not a good plan. Once he's in, he needs to find out how those four men have managed to survive. And then, later, who's behind the flu-x virus in the first place. Someone has hired this laboratory, L knows that for sure. This isn't the work of a few professors, this is the work of someone big.

Someone with a god complex.

Again.

* * *

He's thankful for Rae's silence, his mind is whirring overtime as it is, still skimming over all the information he read before he left.

Everyone who had set foot in this university who wasn't at least one quarter Asian died in the first forty-eight hours the flu-x virus hit. Save four men. From the same lab. It's not a question of whether they survived by chance.

L is one hundred percent certain they have either a vaccine or a cure. He just hopes its the latter.

Given the nature of the lab's previous works, that's only thirty-eight percent likely.

Lab 2B, lab 3, lab 3A. L stops and holds his hand up to the doorknob.

None of them ever showed any flu-like symptoms. Meaning they knew when it was coming.

It also meant that four men let an entire district suffer, while they knew how to prevent it. And why would whoever-is-in-charge save them? If the goal was to wipe out every foreigner in Japan, why protect the scientists? Certainly, you'd _promise_ to protect them, but why go through with it after the virus had been released?

Because anyone who had a cure could hold the world to ransom, of course. These men probably didn't know it, but they would be exposed by their own employers, held up as an example to the world.

If the terrorists have their way.

L doesn't understand racism. He's seen so much of both worlds - this one and the last one - and he's come to the conclusion that every single person is fascinatingly, intricately, impossibly unique. Why would someone attempt to generalise the entire population on a trait as broad as skin colour? At least generalising based on whether or not someone was a convicted axe murder had some relevance to your own life.

And even _that_ was a dangerous thing to do.

"You do realise you'll die, now," Rae says calmly. "You've been exposed to the virus. You'll die too."

L knocks. The door swings open. A man with curly brown hair and blue eyes opens the door. He's not much older than L. His nametag reads: E Smith.

Edward Smith. One of the four. Child prodigy, completed a masters degree in virology at age fourteen. Part of the team that came up with the existing single-dose rabies vaccine in the United States.

_Why have you let this happen?_ L thinks.

He bows.

"Sorry I'm late," he says politely. "I'm, uh, here to pick up the samples."

"Wait here," Edward tells him. "I'll go get them."

L peers past him, into the room. There are eight scientists, three women and five men. Most seem to be very busy, but two of the women are looking back at him. L waves.

"Would you like some help carrying them?" he asks, desperately scanning the laboratory. The scientists are working in the main room, inside little air-locked glass cabinets, using robotic arms. But there are a lot of areas out of sight. Three sets of doors leading into what L knows are higher-security rooms, the kind only used for very dangerous infectious material. The doors are each equipped with fingerprint scanners and retinal scanners.

Now why would a vaccination facility need those?

His question is, apparently, too out of the ordinary. Another man looks around.

"Go and get the samples, Smith," he says firmly, striding towards the door. He's older, and almost as wide as he is tall. He stares down at L. He isn't wearing a nametag.

"Who are you? Haven't seen you before. Where's Takashi?"

He his tone is both unsettled and vaguely threatening. L sighs loudly, inappropriately, and slouches even more than usual.

"Yeah, I'm a temp. First day. Takashi's sick, man. Says he'll kick my ass if I screw up."

He picks his nose, just for good measure.

The man rolls his eyes.

"Heaven forbid they employ anyone competent," he says darkly.

He has to be Phillip Woodford, unknown Caucasian descent. His financial records show he travelled to Japan with his sister last year. Her name is Marnie Woodford. She works for the Japanese police force. She was admitted to hospital with the flu on the second day of the flu-x outbreak. Philip went to visit her eight hours later. Her recovery was so miraculous that the doctors let her go home by the next morning. Her medical records say 'ordinary flu'.

There's an sixty-nine percent chance that it wasn't the ordinary flu at all. If that's the case, then what they have is not only a preventative, but also a cure. And easily transferable, in some way. There's no way the people in charge would have wanted it to be easily to pass on. The scientists must have altered it in secret. Interesting.

He needs to find that cure. In the next thirty seconds, or anything he does is going to be suspicious.

Smith comes back with several canisters in a bag and hands them to him.

"Thanks, man," L says, drawling a little. "Say, ain't you that Edward Smith that did all the fancy things with them vaccy-nations? I dunno much 'bout science, but my girlfriend's real smart like, and she says you're awesome."

Smith flushes a little. Woodford growls and stomps back into the lab. He hits a button on the wall, and tinted glass doors slide into place, cutting L's vision off from everything except Smith and about four square feet of the laboratory atrium.

"I like to be able to help people," Smith says, and his voice trembles a little. "Vaccines are fascinating. Look, I can't be out here talking to you."

L's head is still spinning. Woodford never _gave_ his sister anything, as far as records show. No injections. A hospital would never allow those. So how?

L stares at Smith, slowly, turning things over inside his head.

Twenty...something percent.

"Oh, yeah," he agrees, laughing stupidly. "I mean, I don' even know what the words mean. She's all excited about parentally orentally buckle suppository...something, I dunno."

Smith brightens.

"You mean buccal repository vaccines? They're amazing, aren't they. They, well, they work where ordinary injections can't. I'm rambling. You probably don't understand anything I'm saying, do you?" Smith hesitates and snickers nervously. "Anyway, thanks. Say hi to your girlfriend from me."

L has a gun under his shirt. He had planned to hold someone to ransom, if needed.

_Usually injectable, although they were experimenting with mucosal delivery a few months ago._

Yes.

Smith goes to walk away. L doesn't need to hold him at gunpoint. He only needs one thing.

"Wait," L says, grabs Smith by the sleeve of his lab coat, and kisses him.

And then, he runs.

* * *

"For a laboratory that's got nothing to hide, they've sure got a lot of security guards with guns. And just because a guy kissed another guy."

"That's exactly what they didn't want me to do," L tells Rae quietly. "It's a repository mucosal vaccine. It's-"

"Absorbed through mucus membranes, ie, the mouth. Being repository, it provides them with constant absorption over a specified period of time. Therefore transmissible by mouth to mouth contact. I know."

"You surprise me," L says grudgingly.

"I read a lot. I get bored."

"What, is it boring just tormenting people all day?"

He had to think on his feet. He can't outrun fifteen guards with guns, especially with no direct route back, but he can outlast them. He's barricaded himself into one of the bomb shelters in the next building. They know he's there, but they can't get in. And he has phone signal.

"The others won't be here for eight hours, so you might as well get comfortable," he says, wondering absently how comfortable one can be when they're made entirely out of bones.

"Eight hours, unless Matsuda has sabotaged you again."

"You won't rile me," L tells it with quiet certainty. "I trust my team."

"Isn't that how you died in the first place?" Rae asks gleefully.

L ignores him. He's not sure if Rae is randomly insulting him, or if it's actually intelligent enough to deliberately try to wound him, but the comment stings.

The truth is, L is point two percent less confident in his own abilities than he was before he died.

"You have ten seconds, or we'll blow the place up," someone yells from outside.

L can only faintly hear them. They've been making similar threats for the past half an hour. Thing is, they'll want him alive. They need to know who he works for. Whoever the ringleaders of this genocide operation are, they're scared.

What L _is_ worried about is that they might destroy their own laboratory. He needs that evidence. It's not enough just to get the cure, he needs to stop the people responsible, or it will just happen again.

He sticks his thumb in his mouth. He's out of sweets, and the room is dark. The only light is from the curious yellow flames that seem to burn on the inside of Rae's ribcage, and he knows that the people outside won't be able to see that. The bomb shelter is gritty and disused. There's carpet on the floor, but it's covered by a thick layer of dust. The walls are grimy, paint peeling in long curly strips. Spider webs decorate the corners of the ceiling, and every so often he sees a cockroach zip from one shadow to another.

They're cutting it close. M was infected ten hours ago. L knows that logically, he has another thirty-eight hours before the time he's most likely to die. But L also knows that the cure probably doesn't work after about eighteen hours, otherwise there would be no reason for Woodford to rush to his sister's side.

The others need to smuggle him in, they can't risk waiting until L can travel back to base. After that, logically, they should probably start getting swabs of L's mouth and distributing them to the various hospitals. That will be unpleasant. He hates having things in his mouth that aren't drenched in sugar.

"This is quite a tiresome way of doing things," he muses.

"You're telling me."

Clearly, they should start with the hospital containing Anna Simpson, so that things don't become nasty. Neither Watari nor M have mentioned her death yet, so L can presume she is still alive at present.

All there is left to do, is wait.

* * *

It's been three hours. No one is giving him any new information, and L isn't used to have nothing to do with his mind. He has no other cases in the works to ponder, and he isn't masochistic enough to try and psychoanalyse Rae.

He's not bored. He wishes he were just bored. He's antsy, on edge, nerves strung just a little too tight.

There's a twenty-seven...no, twenty-six percent chance they won't be able to save Mail. M. And that's far too much.

When he was alive, he'd never have let himself be so affected by his own emotions. Maybe he has changed by more than point two percent. Point two five, even. L frowns. That is a problem, and one which cannot be allowed to continue. He decides he'll ask Watari to start putting him through mental training again.

Tomorrow. Once M is safe.

The people outside have gotten quiet, but L knows they're still there. Rae is tracing designs into the dirt. They're surprisingly intricate.

"So," L says conversationally. "I'm the only way you can possibly succeed the king?"

"Yes," Rae says, without looking at him. The red eyes bother L less than they probably should. "The king's own decision, not mine."

"Yet, you don't seem to be concerned when I seem to be in danger," L says. "I could presume that you have absolute faith in my ability to survive -"

Rae snorts.

"- but I think that would be foolish," L finishes. "So, what happens if I die? To your mission, I mean?"

"Oh, it gets passed on to the next most worthy person," Rae says lightly. "Nothing to worry about. I'd probably have an easier job of it."

"I see," L says grimly, touching his own lips. "So that's why you were unconcerned with me exposing myself to the virus. You stand to benefit from my death."

Just as he suspected. So the Shinigami cannot be used as his own personal insurance policy. Disappointing, but expected.

It shrugs its shoulderblades.

"Doesn't matter to me, really. You'll change your mind."

"I will never change my mind," L says sternly, hugging his knees. Rae doesn't respond straight away, and the only noise in the room is the ticking of his own watch. The seconds seem like hours. Watari sends him another message.

_M unconcious_.

L drops the phone.

Unconscious is not the same as dead.

Sleeping is not the same as dead.

M will be fine. Watari never makes spelling mistakes, but that doesn't mean anything. M will be fine.

"You know," Rae says, "you could get out of here right now."

"No."

He still has time. All his calculations say he still has time.

"You know the names of four of the scientists."

And he can control their actions. He knows. Rae knows he knows, damn it. Owners of a death note can control their victim's actions before they die.

"Cause of death: shoots everyone around him before turning the gun on himself," Rae says, apparently to himself. "So easy."

"No," L says, twitching. He needs sugar. There is no sugar.

"These men are scum," Rae tells him. "I saw your disgust when you talked to Smith. And you _kissed_ him."

Shinigami don't judge people. Even the Shinigami King doesn't judge people. L knows that. Rae doesn't mean what it says. It's just trying to manipulate him. It's just saying words, trying to get a reaction. He should not bestow any meaning on Rae's words, because Rae doesn't even know what they mean.

It doesn't matter.

"I said no."

"What will happen to them when they are arrested as terrorists?" Rae asks, tone changing as if it's genuinely curious. It moves around him somewhere, fluidly, without physical form for a moment. When it re-appears, it has his death note in its hands. L deliberately doesn't look at it.

"Justice will happen."

"The death penalty."

"It's still different," L tells it sharply. "The answer is still no."

He wants to be rid of Rae. He wants the death note to burn, like the Shinigami's chest. It's not fair to put a human in this position, just to test a death god.

"People are not toys. They are not sheep. They are not nothing," he says, voice steady. "I don't expect you to understand. People deserve justice."

"Judgement."

"What?"

Judgement had landed the boy he'd named _Mello_ in hell when he died. And L can't see the reason. Doesn't accept the reason. No court would have convicted him, but god did, apparently. L hadn't even realised he'd had a favourite amongst the three Wammy boys until he'd found out.

"What is the difference between justice and judgement?"

L clenches one fist, the one Rae can't see.

"I am not god."

"Neither is a man in a wig at the front of a courtroom."

"It is still more dignified, more human," L says, but he's not. He needs sugar. He's not one hundred percent on that. Mail weighs on his mind like an anchor. There's no guarantee.

Twenty-six percent. Or was it seven?

"Dignity?" Rae wonders. "I see. The boy dies so that they can have dignity. I understand."

"It's _not_ like that," L yells, and he rips the death note out of Rae's hands.

He drops it, as soon as he realises what he's done. It falls open when it hits the floor, sending a cockroach scurrying off into the corner, blank white pages contrasting sharply against the navy carpet.

L stares at it.

Rae presses a pen into his hand.

* * *

"I won't," L says, softly.

Another minute ticks past, second by second. The pen dangles between his fingertips. He doesn't let go. He doesn't bend down for the death note. He doesn't move.

He could.

Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six.

It would be so easy.

Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.

"I won't," L says again. Rae's disappeared. It's just him and the death note.

Something trickles down the fingers of his free hand. Blood. He unclenches his fist. Nothing becomes clearer. There's no message to say Mail is dead.

Twenty-one, twenty two.

There could be, though. At any second.

One, two, three, four.

Any second.

Like, for example, this one.

_Bang._

_

* * *

_

tbc


	3. Clash

notes/warnings

+ pairings: I think the matt/mello is probably obvious enough to warn for it, now. also, there's raye/naomi, of course. others to come.

+ again, there really aren't many OCs in this. if they're a significant character, then they're probably from the actual series somewhere.

+ warning for storyline probably being retarded. this chapter is actually the first half of a hugely long chapter I uploaded and then decided that 10000+ words was ridiculous, so it may seem kind of unfinished. I'll add the second half in a few days.

+ the racial views of people in this fic in no way reflect my own.

* * *

**Clash**

The shot echoes through the air, a single _crack_ that cuts through the heavy silence like a knife. L drops the pen, and almost falls over.

He shakes his head. Clarity comes rushing back. He snatches the notebook from the ground and slips it back into place in the holster under his shirt.

No, he won't. And he never would have.

Rae materialises, eyes glowing blood red, flames burning so fiercely they engulf most of the Shinigami's torso. L has never seen it livid before, but he doesn't really care.

He's fascinated by the noises outside. A second shot rings, and someone lets out a string of swearwords so loudly he can make out every syllable, even through the thick metal walls. L wonders if they've run into university security guards, or if they're honestly stupid enough to think that they can frighten him into coming out.

"You were going to write it," Rae says vindictively, over the gunfire and shouting. L tilts his head and listens intently.

_Bang_.

"Beretta M, 1951," L says thoughtfully. "Interesting. Not many of those still in circulation."

"You just made that up," Rae fumes. "No one can tell the make of a pistol just by listening to the shot."

L shakes his head.

"It's just logic," he tells the Shinigami. "Every model of gun has a slightly different chamber, so the echo of the bullet changes minutely."

"Whatever. What are you going to do now?"

"Even I can't pick every firearm in existence, of course," L says sadly. "One of my colleagues owns exactly that model, so I can recognise it fairly easily."

"So, can you tell the make and model of a gun by the exit wounds the bullet leaves in you?" Rae asks maliciously. "Maybe you should go outside and find out."

"Sick of me already?" L asks.

It's been quiet outside for almost a minute. Too long. Something else has happened.

L's phone rings. The screen flashes blue. N.

"Calling in mid flight?" L asks.

"Hardly," she says brightly. "You okay?"

His heart sinks.

"You haven't left yet?"

"We're here," she says unhelpfully, but L picks up the smile in her voice.

"What do you mean?"

"You can come out of the shelter," she tells him. "It's safe."

L snaps the phone shut so fast he almost catches a finger in it. By his calculations, they should be midway over the ocean. Interesting.

"How?" Rae wonders out loud. L ignores him and drops to his stomach on the floor. There aren't any windows, but there's a crack under the door. N hadn't used any of the code words to indicate she'd been forced to make the call, but better to be careful, of course.

He sees one of the armed security guards lying motionless on the ground, and nothing else. A moment later, R steps into view and grins down at the bottom of the door broadly, such a welcome sight. L gets up, fiddles with the rather complicated lock, slams the door open, and goes outside.

The place is deserted, save three men lying on the ground, and a fourth handcuffed to a tree. And N and R right there, beaming at him, three hours earlier than they possibly could have arrived, according to their flight schedule.

"What happened?" L asks, fascinated. He's moving towards them so fast he's almost running, so relieved to have some company that isn't Rae.

N makes a face, the sort that indicates she'd rather not talk about it.

"Matsuda stole a plane," she says, simply.

* * *

L slants a significant look at Rae, who is ignoring him.

Ha.

There's no real damage been done to the buildings. The security guards are not entirely motionless. N and R were shooting to injure, not kill. And they're both excellent shots.

"The police are on their way here. They're going to charge these four with being accessories to terrorism. The others got away," N says, never one to waste words.

"I see."

They get a lead, and suddenly the police are happy to help them out again. Both predictable and convenient.

L scratches his head._ They must have ambushed them_, he thinks. A perfect plan. N probably squatted down behind the corner of the building, and R probably hid in the hedge he can see a little further away. The guards probably didn't suspect a thing until it was too late. Bang. The injured will go into custody, and the rest ran for cover, facilitating L's escape.

Very well done.

"I think two of the guys on the ground are going to need medical treatment," R says.

"That's not so important right now," L says. "Where is M?"

"With Mats...with T. In a car that's parked about a block away. We couldn't risk him getting hurt."

L exhales hard. They're here. He's here. M's here. They have time.

"Take me to him now."

"He's delirious," R says, falling into step with them. "He keeps talking to someone called Mel."

If he notices L's grimace, he's kind enough not to say anything.

"I've contacted the major hospitals in the area," N says, equally kind. "We're to go there next."

"I agree with this plan," L says.

"Are you just going to leave those men there?" Rae demands. "They'll get away. You don't know how long it's going to take for the police to arrive."

L doesn't answer the Shinigami, of course. There's a service station parking lot up ahead, with a sprinkling of cars inside.

"The white Sedan on the left," N whispers. "T's taking you to the pathology centre, and then straight back to base."

L shakes his head.

"No. T and M go back to base. I've contacted Watari, he's booking us an observation room as we speak. He'll contact you with the details. When you're finished, I'll meet you there."

R shares a mystified look with N. L smiles. The hard part is over. He's contacted the necessary journalists, and tomorrow's paper will be out in under twelve hours.

They can knock this case over in a day, no problem at all.

* * *

Marnie Woodford sits up in bed, groaning. She's been on the night shift, her first day back since her illness, and she's only had three hours of sleep. She snatches her phone violently.

Philip. Fuck.

"What do you want?"

"What is _wrong_ with you, woman?" her brother snarls. "I expect you to answer the phone when I call you!"

She sighs.

"I've been working. What's wrong."

"Do you have any idea how much I've sacrificed for you?" he rages. "Look in the fucking paper."

She gets up. It's easier than arguing with him, even over the phone. He's such a bull-headed fool, her brother. She doesn't know the finer details of what he does for a living, but she's fairly sure there's something pretty illegal going on with his laboratory. If anything happens, it will reflect badly on her.

Her flatmate is up, drinking coffee with a very pretty woman she's never seen before. Like every other morning.

"Paper, David," she demands croakily, ignoring whore number three thousand and six. He passes it to her without a word.

"Page twelve, hurry up!" Philip's still yelling in her ear.

She hears a car pull up outside. The neighbours must be having someone over. She turns to page twelve and reads.

"There's an article about me and my miraculous recovery," she says boredly. "So what?"

"I told you it was to be kept a _secret_," he howls. "And not to bring it to anyone's _attention_. Do you have any idea how much trouble we're in?"

"Trouble? Philip, if this is going to jeopardise my job, then I don't want to kn-"

"It's going to jeopardise your whole fucking _life_, Marnie!" he rants. "You're at home right now?"

"Yes! I told you-"

"You need to get out of there."

Marnie pauses.

"What?"

There's a knock at the door, heavy and rhythmical.

"I'll get it," David says brightly, shooting a saccharine smile at his latest girl. She's a brunette, and annoyingly thin.

"I mean there are people out to get _you_," Philip tells her frantically.

"What? What people? What are you _talking_ about?"

He's never sounded so frightened before. He's been uneasy ever since he gave her whatever-it-was that got her better, but he's never sounded _scared._ Something's wrong.

"I don't know his name," Philip says. "We did some work for him. Confidential. I...he'll know we breached it. Marnie!"

"What do you want me to do?" she asks. Her heart is thudding in her chest. What the fuck has he gotten himself into?

"Leave. Leave right now, go to the airport, and get on a plane."

"You want me to go back to Sydney?" she asks, incredulously.

"Anywhere, I don't really care," he says, and he sounds like he's begging now. "Just get out of Japan."

"But what..."

Marnie trails off. There's a dull _thud_ from the direction of the front door, followed by a distinct _click. _Without even thinking, she reaches for her holster, and then realises she's still in her pyjamas. She takes a step towards the door.

"David?"

Four very un-David-like men walk into the room, followed by four more. Marnie gasps and steps back.

"Oh god."

They've all got masks on. They're all heavily armed. Whoever it is that Philip's pissed off, they mean business.

"Listen," she says desperately, holding out her hands. "I'm not a part of anything my brother does. I'm just a police officer."

The front four calmly take aim at her, and she grinds to a halt.

"What is this?" she whispers.

"Marnie Woodford?" asks the one furthest to the left. She nods wordlessly. She's having trouble swallowing.

"You're in breach of our client's confidentiality agreement," says the one next to him.

"I don't know your client," she says, her voice trembling. "I don't know anyone. Please, just leave me alone. I just. I just want to go back to sleep."

"You can't just break into someone's house like this," says the brunette woman, coming to stand beside her, and Marnie is suddenly infinitely grateful for her presence. "It's illegal."

"You get down on the ground," the first man growls. "Hands behind your head."

"Don't you dare shoot her," Marnie snaps. "Who are you working for? What's going on. Does this have anything to do with flu-x."

"Where are you from, girly?" another man from the back asks. "Australia, is it? They've got no morals down there."

Marnie gapes.

"You're insulting my country?" she asks, dumbfounded.

"This will be so much easier when people like her are gone," another man mutters. "They're filth."

"Obviously," the first says. "That's why they all need to be...cleaned up."

Marnie stands where she is, shaking violently.

_I'm going to die_.

"If you're going to shoot me," says brunette, cowering on the ground, "then can't I at least know who you are? I'm Japanese! Why don't you just shoot the _filth_?"

Marnie glares at her. Geeze, David can pick 'em.

"Don't get me wrong," says the first man. "It pains me to have to kill an honest Japanese woman. If only you'd kept better company, you'd be fine."

He takes aim at her head.

"The last words you'll ever hear," he tells her. "We work for a little overseas company called Yotsuba. We're making the world a better place."

"You're also all under arrest," says the man in the middle at the back. His voice is absolutely flat, almost bored. Marnie stares at him curiously. The others instantly, as one, turn their guns on him.

"Who are you? Where is Deiko?" one of them demands.

"You've also got fake guns," says the man who had called her 'filth', and his voice sounds much more pleasant. "But _we_ don't."

"I have no idea what is going on," Marnie confessed, staring between them. "Am I going to die or not?"

Brunette gets up off the floor gracefully.

"It's all right," she says gently. "Marnie. I'm sorry we had to do this to you. This is an ambush."

She has a pistol in her left hand.

"I'd say this is just about over, wouldn't you?" she asks them brightly, and then laughs.

Sometimes, Marnie thinks she just should have stayed in Sydney.

* * *

"According to our most recent reports, people are starting to recover already," Watari tells L happily. "You've done an excellent job, of course."

L stares at him expectantly.

"It's a pity we can't move on until M starts improving," he adds. "I know you get bored hanging around after a case is closed."

L continues to stare at him.

"And of course, it will be beneficial to know _why_ the Yotsuba group wanted to commit genocide."

L tilts his head slightly. Watari's a bit slow on the uptake, sometimes.

"But I suspect the core goal was simply to demand large amounts of money in ransom from other countries, and that they simply employed racial extremists because it was convenient."

Stare.

"Such a nasty business," says Watari, and L wonders if he's doing this just to torture him. "Er, did you want something?"

"I've been gone for nearly twenty-four hours," L says calmly.

"Oh," Watari says, suddenly understanding. "Yes. Of course. Right away."

"Make sure there is at least three pounds of icing on top," L calls after him, happier already.

* * *

L spends the next three hours eating, and trying to ignore Rae hovering around him.

"You would have done it. You wanted to. You wanted to do the right thing."

"I _did_ do the right thing, Shinigami."

T comes and gets him when M wakes up properly, and L ignores the urge to run all the way to the makeshift hospital room.

He's staring at the ceiling when they arrive, and he doesn't look at them until L crouches down beside the bed.

"How are you?" he asks. "Feeling better?"

"Feel the same," M says with a shrug. His voice is hoarse and unpleasant. His hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat. They've taken off his shirt, and L can't ignore how his torso resembles Rae's, skin stretched tight over his bones, ugly black tattoo right over his heart.

Absurdly, L wants to touch him. As if that will help.

"You'll feel better in the morning," he says. "It usually only takes eight hours to work completely."

"I don't ever feel better," M tells him, but then he seems to consider that prospect. "Will I be allowed to smoke again in the morning?"

"Yes," L tells him. "You should try and eat something, too."

"No," he says, so stubborn. Still a _child_. L puts his fingers on the top of M's head. As he predicted, it doesn't make any difference at all.

M doesn't want L, and L can't give him who he wants. He hates feeling powerless.

"I will leave you in peace," he says finally.

T hesitates in the doorway, and L has the notion he's going to say something stupid a good three seconds before he actually does.

"Who's Mel?" he asks. "Was she your girlfriend?"

M's expression is so venomous Matsuda actually takes a step backwards.

"Don't ever say that name again," he snaps.

"But you-"

"Ever. Or I swear to fucking god, I will shoot you through the heart."

He means it. L knows he means it.

"Come on, T, time to go," he says without emotion, and drags Matsuda back out into the hall.

* * *

"Rae?"

The Shinigami is stretched out on the bottom bunk, apparently asleep. L drops one leg over the side of his bed and kicks it.

"Rae!"

"Why would I want to talk to you?" Rae asks darkly. "Go back to sleep."

"Shinigami are gods, am I correct?"

Rae opens one crimson eye suspiciously.

"Yes, of course."

"So are you familiar with the workings of hell?"

Rae opens the other eye and rolls over reluctantly.

"I've had some experience, I suppose."

"How are people judged?"

He needs to know.

"What?"

"On what criteria are people judged?" L asks. "It's not a difficult question."

"It's a stupid question," Rae tells him. "People go to hell because they're categorically evil and deserve to suffer."

His voice is singsong, like he's quoting a textbook.

"A friend of mine is in hell," L says quietly. "He wasn't evil."

"Then you've misjudged him," the Shinigami tells him. It seems to be warming to the conversation now that it's clear L is suffering. Of course.

"Perhaps," L says. "Is there any way to reverse the process?"

"You want to bust someone out of hell?" Rae asks, sounding greatly amused.

"Would it even be possible?"

Rae seems to consider this, cupping one bony hand under its chin.

"I wouldn't worry about it," it says finally. "At the rate you're going, you'll be right there with him in no time."

"What do you mean?"

"Whoever's doing that judging, they know you have the note," it says smugly. "They also know you aren't using it. Therefore, you're standing by while crimes are committed. That makes you an accessory. I wonder how many times it will happen before the five years is up? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? Yeah, you're going to hell, L."

L rolls his eyes. Why does he even bother.

"Goodnight, Rae."

"Sweet dreams, L."

* * *

As soon as M is better, L drags them all back to their base in London. It's his favourite, the best-equipped and the best-hidden. There are no new cases in the works, and they could all do with a little more training.

Or a lot more, in some people's case.

The thing is, L would like to be able to say that he keeps T around because he's spontaneous, and therefore unpredictable to anyone who might be analysing their actions. Because he does things that are stupid and unnecessary and abrupt, and occasionally saves all of them because of it. Because he's the one who isn't brilliant, so he thinks like ordinary people think, a window into the world of non-geniuses. Of course, R isn't a genius either, but he's certainly smarter than an average person.

However, there's another reason L keeps Matsuda around, one so ridiculous and childish and small that he can't ever tell any of the others.

Because _he_ was the one to kill Kira.

More than anything else, Matsuda makes L feel safe.

* * *

A month drags by, and then another.

"I can't believe there's _still_ nothing happening," T wails. "How much longer can this go on?"

"You should be happy," L says, even though he himself isn't pleased with the long stretch of unemployment. "Perhaps the hell filter is actually working."

T brightens.

"Perhaps we've actually made a difference."

"Maybe," L says. "Is Watari still training you in combat?"

"Yes! Everything hurts."

L goes back to his computer screen.

"Good. You're doing well, then."

"Huh?" T sounds shocked. "But, I. Um. Thanks."

He leaves in under sixty seconds from the time L starts to ignore him. L's pleased at how much he's improved.

As soon as he's gone, Rae picks up the newspaper again.

"Serial rapist in Vancouver," the Shinigami says matter-of-factly. "They've got him in custody, but there's not a lot of evidence."

"That case doesn't interest me," L tells it. "The police can probably handle it on their own."

If he remembers correctly, Yagami's working in Vancouver. L's never been sure whether to get in touch with him or not. He probably doesn't wish to be reminded of his son.

"You don't need to be interested," Rae says irritably. "All you need is five seconds and a pen. His name is James Lightfoot."

"I'm not murdering anyone," L says blithely, for the eighth time since breakfast.

* * *

There's a case in France. Blackmail. L's not sure it's up to his calibre, but then again, his team needs something to do other than train. He's been testing them with puzzles and mock cases during the day, and they've been sparring with each other at night. T and N are perfect partners in the ring, almost completely equally matched. R is better than both of them. Even Watari's improving.

M doesn't spar, despite having made a full recovery. L doesn't ask him to, either.

Rae's sitting next to him.

It doesn't hunch like L, like the other Shinigami. It sits straight-backed and proud. L wonders what being heir to the king means. Is there a title, like 'prince'?

Probably not. Rae would have bragged about it.

"Pedophile ring in Birmingham," Rae says, right next to his ear. "Michael Lenny, George Dempsey, Hal Lumbridge, and Mischa Blake all in custody."

"Then they'll be brought to justice anyway," L mouths carefully. The others are too close by for him to speak normally.

"Something like this happened last year, and they walked away with three years each," Rae says darkly.

L knows. It was a terrible precedent to set, but there are other precedents. Every case is different.

"If you like, I'll get the others together and we can help find some more evidence on those men," he offers softly.

"How? By getting those poor terrified kids to speak? You gonna have Watari torture them?"

L flinches, and thinks _how dare you_ before getting his emotions back under control.

"No," he says, voice still quiet. "I do things the right way."

"The coward's way," Rae tells him.

* * *

They go to Greece a few days later, on the heels of what the government reports to be 'an amazing fraudster'. L really only agreed to it after N shouted at him for ten minutes and told him they had to do _something_.

L recognises a woman at the airport. He's met her on a previous case, the girlfriend of a mafia boss. She's hidden well, scarf around her head, big sunglasses, big trench coat. L picks out at least ten ordinary-looking people around her that are clearly body-guards. They follow her every movement. They're all hiding guns in different places, and L admires one slightly plump woman who's hidden a pistol most effectively in her armpit.

They can't challenge them here, of course, they'd all be shot in an instant. And it's never a good idea to mention the mafia to M, just like it's not a good idea to eat chocolate around M.

She goes only by the name of Sascha, but L knows from past research that her last name is Dakis. He also knows that she is ninety-six percent certain to be the person responsible for the latest spate of mafia kidnappings and tortures. She's power-mad and ruthless, poisonous. She sent hitmen after him, the last time he met her. Two of them almost succeeded.

The world would be better off without her.

Unconsciously, L touches the notebook strapped to his chest.

Rae swoops on him.

"Use it," it suggests, voice excited and friendly. Rae changes tone like the very best sort of conman, whatever is most likely to work. "No one will know. It's just one death."

Random heart attacks happen all the time. L is perfectly aware of that. He's also aware that - based on the direction she's headed and the luggage in her hands - she's arriving, and not departing. Meaning he'll finally be in the same city as her again.

Maybe this time he'll find enough evidence.

L feels slightly better.

"She'll never talk," Rae tells him with certainty. "Better just to finish it off. You could do it tonight, when you are all alone in the hotel room."

L can't answer the Shinigami, of course. It's far too crowded.

"Never," he says, a single quiet word, lost in the bustle.

He doesn't miss the way Rae's eyes burn bright red, the way its flames cackle and spit.

_Sorry, Shinigami_, he thinks. _You'll have to do better than that_.

* * *

L likes luxury hotel beds. They're soft under his feet, and big enough to accommodate him when he flails around nine hundred times in his sleep. They're comfortable, and L doesn't even mind when they get filled up with cake crumbs.

He takes off his belt and stretches. It's four am. There haven't been any leads on Dakis, and they solved the fraudster problem within three hours of arriving. L hadn't even needed to help, M had worked it out.

Smart kid.

He crawls into bed and rolls onto his back, curling his toes happily. He needs to sleep lying down occasionally, or his back starts to cramp. He'd rather perch on the end of the bed - the position in which he's most at ease - but he can't combat his own physiological needs.

L rolls over and closes his eyes. He's never had any trouble falling asleep once he gives himself permission, and he drifts off in a matter of seconds.

An indeterminate amount of time later, he wakes up with a start, a sharp, sudden pain in his ribs.

He stares at the clock. 4.07am. He stares at Rae, who smiles and waves.

L glares, but he's already feeling uneasy.

"Good night," he says with finality, and turns over, his back to the skeletal monster in the room.

He closes his eyes.

He's barely blacked out when Rae pokes him again.

* * *

tbc

to my reviewers: thank you! :D


	4. Torture

notes/warnings

+ foul language.

+ some adult themes.

* * *

**Torture**

Rae wakes him at 4.15, 4.18, 4.20, 4.25, and 4.32.

By the sixth time, L is starting to have more difficult relaxing, his body tense with anticipation of the jab.

"Stop that," he says sleepily. "What do you think this is going to achieve?"

"You haven't slept in three days," the Shinigami says brightly. "Why start now?"

A vague sense of dread is starting to well up in L. He'd suspected Rae would progress from simply trying to persuade him, but he hadn't be able to gauge _how_. Shinigami have almost no effect in the human world, after all.

But clearly, Rae is intelligent.

L stays on his side, eyes open, trying to decide whether it would be better to get up and go back to work, or deal with Rae's ministrations.

He wonders what Sascha is doing in Greece. Some sort of rendezvous, no doubt, and L really needs to find out where and why. But he's found nothing, and they've been there almost a whole day. She might have been and gone.

L closes his eyes, just for a moment. It's dark and safe underneath his own eyelids, a whole world of temporary nothingness...

"You know you could use that woman to bring down the entire mafia?" Rae asks loudly, hovering over him. L jolts, startled out of the beginnings of slumber.

"Only if we can take her into custody," L says. "That will be difficult."

"Why don't you use the note? Surely she doesn't deserve-"

"_Everyone_ deserves a fair trial," L says irritably. "Now leave me _alone_."

* * *

L gets up at six and stumbles to T's room, grumpy and exhausted.

"What on earth are you doing awake?" he asks, surprised. "I thought you only went to bed a few hours ago."

"Couldn't sleep," L tells him. He has bruises on his ribs from Rae's bony fingertips, and his head is throbbing dully.

"Still trying to work out how we'll catch Dakis?" T asks happily. "I'm just excited we finally have a proper case again. I was starting to feel so _useless_."

L smiles at him briefly. Matsuda is many things, but he's rarely useless. Mostly, he's exasperating, childish, and unpredictable.

Come to think of it, L's fairly certain he's heard himself described with the same words. Perhaps such traits are the foundation of all good detectives. He touches his thumb to his mouth, comforted by the familiarity of it, and by T's presence.

He can still see the Shinigami hovering next to him, laughing merrily. It's been laughing for the past two hours, the sounds fills up his ears, a cacophony, inescapable. He wishes Rae would crumble to dust, and wonders absently what it would take.

Where is Misa Amane when he needs her, anyway?

Probably in hell, if L's estimations of her had been correct. No one, not even Matsuda, could confirm whether or not Misa was the second Kira. Not that it had mattered, in the end.

"I was thinking that Dakis might be headed to the firearms convention," L says softly. The business that was the front for the American mafia manufactured firearms. She is supposedly an employee. It wouldn't be suspicious if she attended.

"That's on tomorrow," T exclaims, and L has never really understood why he feels the need to speak so loudly about ordinary things.

"Yes," L agrees. "I think we should go. Or, more specifically, I think _you_ should go. Possibly with M."

"I'm on surveillance? Awesome!"

L rests his head against the wall for a moment. Rae immediately pokes him hard enough that he jerks.

"Uh, are you okay?" T asks, eyeing him. "You just collapsed for no reason."

"I deduced the same thing," L tells him as calmly as possible. "However, I assure you I am fine. Come on, I want to talk to you about Dakis."

"As long as you're sure," T says, falling into step beside him. He automatically grabs the platter of donuts from his table as he passes. L has trained him well.

"Oh yes," L tells him. "Just a little tired."

* * *

L sits up in bed. It's almost one in the morning, and he feels vaguely dizzy. He's been woken so many times he can't keep count. He's barely gotten a minute's worth of sleep, cumulatively. Rae grins down at him.

"You ought to stop this," L tells the death god. "It's childish and unproductive."

"I don't know," Rae replies spitefully. "I have to say I've never seen you so rattled before."

"I'm not rattled."

He's a little dysphoric, though. The room seems stretched, surreal. He desperately craves sleep, even for just half an hour. Part of his mind is screaming at him to do anything, anything. Just get some rest.

But L hasn't trained himself diligently every day for nothing. He knows what the Shinigami wants, and he knows he won't do it. Everything else is just detail.

"Do your worst," L murmurs, and closes his eyes once more, craving that tiny snatch of unconsciousness, the closest thing to sleep he's gotten in five days.

They've found Dakis' most recent hotel, and tomorrow, L will be at the top of his game, sleep or no sleep.

Because he needs to be.

* * *

Dakis is clever.

She's not as clever as L. She's not on the same level as Near and Mello. She's probably not even as smart as Kira had been. But she's moderately bright, and incredibly paranoid, and the combination makes her very difficult to track.

L stares at his computer screen. She uses a different car company every time she travels, and she goes to a different hotel every day. She's always surrounded by at least five bodyguards, but their identities are unknown. M has fuzzy pictures of all of them, the best he could get without seriously endangering his own life.

L scrubs a hand over his eyes, which feel permanently gritty and sore from being kept open for too long. He showers almost daily, trying to stay one step ahead of the fog that threatens to cloud his judgement and overthrow him. He's tripled the amount of cake he eats.

N comes to see him before she goes to bed.

"L?"

"Yes?"

She twirls a strand of hair around her finger, stalling. The gesture should remind him of Near, but it doesn't. He was always so confident, while she's obviously not sure about what she wants to say.

"You will...tell me if something's going wrong, won't you, L?"

"I don't understand what you mean," he says perversely, not looking up from his computer. "I've kept you up to date on the Dakis case. I suppose you could say it's not progressing as quickly as hoped, but I wouldn't classify it as 'going wrong', either."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

L tilts his head at her, and she sighs.

"You're not taking care of yourself. I know that much."

"I take care of myself as much as I ever have," L tells her, mostly honestly.

"Even Matsuda has noticed how prominent the bags under your eyes are becoming," she replies crossly. "You're not sleeping at all, are you?"

"I sleep when I can," L replies, this time completely honestly.

"So what's stopping you right now?" she asks. "Go to bed."

If he lets his mind wander from the task at hand, bed is all he can think about. Crawling between cool clean sheets and fading to blackness that lasts for days and days. It's all he wants. His head aches.

"Raye and I have plenty of medicine in our cabinet, if it's pain or illness that's bothering you," she adds.

L doesn't take medication, and he doesn't accept first aid. Ever. He needs his body exactly the way it is in order to be able to function at full capacity.

And he wishes she wouldn't say R's full name out loud. One Rae in his life is enough.

"Thank you. I'll come down and see you if I need anything," he says, lining his voice with gratitude.

They can't help him.

"The latest victim of the mystery serial kidnapper was a thirteen year old boy," Rae says loudly, reading from the open page of the newspaper that's lying on the desk. "He was found dismembered in a ditch five days later. He was suffering from third degree burns. Coroner's report says it would have taken him at least forty-eight hours to die."

L's already been through the paper. He knows.

"Goodnight, then," N says, clearly still dissatisfied with the situation. "You will sleep tonight, won't you?"

"I'll try," L says, and pretends not to notice Rae's malevolent grin.

She leaves.

"Look at this," Rae says immediately, thrusting the paper in his face. "You let this happen. You're sick. You don't deserve to sleep."

"Perhaps," L says. There is a pattern in her movements, he thinks. She's meeting up with people, but he doesn't know why. Why does she need to be here in person? What are they doing?

His head thumps, a steady beat behind his eyes. He presses his forehead to his hand for a moment, and he knows the Shinigami is watching him, waiting for him to try to nap.

"For the love of god, just _write_ it," Rae yells, slamming the death note down in front of him. "How much longer can you let this go on? She'll send you the names of everyone she works with if you write it. Easy. Over. Nobody else needs to suffer."

L regards the notebook muzzily. The silver words swirl around for a few seconds before they come into focus.

"You sound very convincing," he agrees. "But this is only about you being king. Shinigami don't care what happens in the human world, so I'm not going to be moved by your apparent misguided concern."

"You presume to know what a death god thinks?" Rae asks darkly. "You're pretty confident, aren't you?"

L stares at his tormenter.

"Not at all. It's simple. If you genuinely cared, you'd just write her name down in your own note. No need to involve me at all. Thus, your motivation is simple. Anything it takes to get me to use this."

L taps the notebook in front of him. He hates the sight of it. Such an evil thing.

"I can't do that," Rae says. "You have my only notebook. Part of the deal. So that I can't kill anyone in order to influence you."

"Oh," L says. Interesting. "I was under the impression a Shinigami always needed at least one of their own."

"I'm special," Rae says, smiling. It's possibly the most horrible thing L has ever seen. "And _you're_ a monster. I'm going to make sure you never sleep again."

"I figured," L replies. The world is slowly starting to spin.

* * *

L goes without sleep for a week. Seven nights of staring at the ceiling and counting the number of times Rae jabs him in the ribs, carving up the long hours until morning.

The days are still better than the nights - he has company, at least - but the exhaustion is starting to slow him down.

On the eighth night, when Rae stops him from sleeping for the sixtieth time, he gets up and heads down the hall. He doesn't even realise he's moving until he's halfway there.

He's starting to be dangerous, acting and not thinking. He's been requesting that N double-check every decision he makes. The others are starting to worry. This needs to end, one way or another. Rae's always been unobtrusive when anyone else is around, mostly. L hopes it's part of the conditions of his mission, that he can't do anything to reveal to anyone else that L has a death note.

He hopes.

If he went and asked to sleep in the same room as anyone else, they'd be suspicious. They'd possibly panic. They'd know something was seriously wrong, and L would have a difficult time explaining it, in his present state. M would suspect a Shinigami, L knows. N and R have convinced themselves he's not well. Watari might even do something drastic.

So, by process of elimination.

L knocks on the door.

This is such a bad idea.

T answers the door with surprising speed. His hair is a mess, he has pink pyjama pants on, and he smells like bed and sleep. L wants to crack him open and crawl inside.

He's...he's going mad.

"Can I sleep here?" he asks.

"L! Uh...sure. Uh...you do realise I only have one bed, right?"

Of course. T always gets the smallest room.

"That isn't a concern to me," L says, pushing past him and crawling onto T's mattress. He's not sure this will work, but he's also running out of options. He presses his face into the pillow, ignoring the way Rae's shadow falls over him. His skin itches, and he feels stupid, desperate.

T closes the door.

"Are you hitting on me?" he asks, hesitantly.

"No," L groans. "I'm going to sleep. I don't care what you do."

T shrugs.

"Okay!" he says brightly, apparently returning to his normal version of reality, which L presumes is filled with bunny rabbits and smiling daffodils. He flops down beside L without preamble.

"You don't really think it's this easy, do you?" Rae asks nastily.

"Mm," L says, exhausted. It's getting hard for him to even attempt to fall asleep. His own mind keeps jolting him awake before Rae does.

It's a clever tactic, he'll give the Shinigami that much.

He hears T snoring next to him, and he's overwhelmed with jealousy.

_This isn't fair, I didn't ask for this. I need to be the best, I am the best, I can't stop being the best. I'll be useless. I wind up useless. This isn't fair._

_I can't LOSE._

_...I wonder if this is what hell feels like, Mello._

He drifts slowly.

Rae pokes him.

An hour later, Matsuda shakes L, even though he's not asleep.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" he asks, wide-eyed. "You just keep jerking awake. Like, every few minutes!"

"Ah," L replies. "Yes."

T doesn't look right. He has too many eyes, and he's shouting so loudly L can't think. The room lurches around him, making him feel sick. He grabs onto the edge of the bed and presses his head against, willing things back to normal.

It's just in his head. It's all in his head.

He's not sure how he makes it back to his own room, or what excuse he gave T. He's pretty sure that Rae carried him part of the way, and just thinking about that makes his skin crawl. He collapses on the floor, and it takes him seven tries to successfully push the door shut with his foot.

Rae hovers over him, a looming menace. He covers his face with his hands. There are things, monsters, predators, lurking in the periphery of his vision. He knows they're not real.

He knows.

* * *

Another two days crawl by, and he doesn't even try to go to bed. He can't hold his head up on his own, he drops teacups and pens and everything else he tries to hold on to. The others are starting to whisper. He locks himself in his room on the third night, just to get away from them. Every noise bothers him. Light bothers him, haha. Night time taunts him. His furniture seems distorted, and the world is going too fast. He finds his bed mostly by trial and error.

"What do I have to do," L says finally, "to get you to stop this?"

The Shinigami touches his hair.

L wants to throw up.

"Just get rid of Dakis," it says quietly. "That's all you need to do."

L touches the notebook lying beside him. It's such a small thing. It weighs less than an apple, than a handful of sand. He still doesn't really understand why it works.

There's a pencil lying next to it. Rae seems to be able to magic writing implements out of thin air whenever it needs to.

The world would be a better place if Dakis were dead. He knows.

He can barely remember who he was a week ago. He's just a shell, empty, clinging to the current case because that's all his addled mind can remember clearly.

"I _can't_," he snarls. "I need _sleep_."

Rae shrugs.

"What a pity," it says unsympathetically.

L stares at the ceiling. There's a fan up there, and he knows intellectually that he hasn't turned it on, but it starts to spin anyway.

He's motionless, pinned to the bed. He knows his body well enough to understand what he's going through. He writes Dakis' name with his finger on the pillowcase. It's her fault. He wants to see her suffer the way he suffers.

Maybe a heart attack is too fast, too gentle.

The Shinigami nudges the note towards him.

"You don't need to worry about this any more," it says. "I don't know why you're protecting her."

L stares at the note.

"You're human," Rae tells him. "You can't let this go on."

Yes. He's human. He's human, and everyone expects him not to be. He isn't. He's not human, he's amazing. They tell him he's amazing. He doesn't feel. He doesn't have emotions. He works and works and works, and he's brilliant. He's justice. He's what they believe in. Everyone expects him to be justice.

He's doing this for them, for all of the thousands of people in the world who aren't quite sure what is right and what's wrong. Who want to sleep safe in their beds at night. Who watch the news on television and read the papers in the morning waiting to see what he's done.

Thousands.

_Fuck them_, L thinks darkly. Thousands of people want him to suffer this so that they can say 'now _there_ is a good man'. Well, fuck _them_.

He _is_ human.

L picks up the pencil. The end is chewed, and the paint is flaking off it. There are stale crumbs in his bed, and a woman out there ordering people to be tortured, and he needs to sleep because he's dying.

No one has any right to blame him. He's human.

Human...

What is human?

L stands up abruptly. His blood pressure drops and he almost topples over, but he grabs the Shinigami by its ugly collarbones and hangs on.

"I won't," he enunciates clearly, voice dark and angry. "I will not. I will not. I will _not!_"

Rae wrenches out of his grip, impossibly strong, and he falls on his back on the bed, useless. The sheets seem to envelope him, strangle him, demons everywhere. He can't think. But he knows.

"Do you understand?" he asks. "I don't care what you say. This is not right."

"_You're_ not right."

The Shinigami glares at him balefully, eyes burning cherry red, blood red. What does it know? What does it know about people? What does it know about suffering? Heir to the king, it sits on a pedestal high above humanity and never looks down.

"This is all your fault," he says.

"You sicken me," Rae sneers, voice angry. "And you call yourself a _human_?"

There's a knock, a steady tap-tap-tap, driving him mad, inside his own skull. Somebody says something, but it's distorted beyond recognition. There's no one else in the room. He can feel his own systems shutting down.

Nothing matters.

"I am human!" L shouts. "I am human! I am human! She is human! I will not, I will not, I will _not_!"

The distorted voice starts up again, maybe from outside his room. Maybe no one else can hear it. His vision goes suddenly, no warning, but he's still conscious. He breathes hard, imagines he can feel his own chest rattling.

It won't take long.

"So," he rasps. "What will you do?"

Rae is silent.

"I told you I was immune to torture," he continues, speaking to nothing. Maybe there's no-one there. "So what will you do?"

"You deserve to die," Rae says, with so much venom that it hurts to hear.

"But will you let me die?" L asks. He's falling asleep, maybe. H can't help it any more. "If I die, you'll get to be with someone else. But...but if I die, then you never got to break me."

He turns his face into his pillow. His skin feels too tight, everything against it hurts.

"I don't think you'll let me die," L says. "I think you'll want to watch me break."

And he drifts, waiting to be woken up. It won't take long. A few more hours without sleep, and he'll be finished.

If he's wrong.

* * *

The ceiling is white.

L stares at it. He's vaguely aware that he's not in his own bed, and he suspects he's not in his own room, either. Beyond that, he feels absolutely euphoric, ridiculously good. He flexes his fingers underneath unfamiliar covers.

"I've been sleeping," he says, amazed.

"For almost three days straight, in fact," M tells him. "Everyone's been worried."

L turns his head. M looks the same as ever, lank green hair and impossibly thin, but in that second, L sees that he is beautiful.

_Did Mello ever see this? _he wonders absurdly. He's always been curious as to whether everything M suffered was in vain.

It's in vain now, of course.

M takes his hand awkwardly.

"What happened, L?"

What happened? He scans the room. His Shinigami is nowhere to be found. He realises with a moment of well-concealed panic that the notebook is no longer strapped to his chest.

He looks back at M.

If they'd found a notebook, M would be screaming at him by now. Any of the others might try and catch him out, but M would throttle him immediately. His hatred for all things death note and Shinigami is absolute, and violent.

"I don't know," L lies. "I had trouble sleeping for a few nights. And then I became so dysfunctional that I couldn't fall asleep even though I was exhausted."

"L? Oh, thank goodness!"

N appears with T at the other side of the bed. L is pretty sure he's actually in Watari's room.

"You were crazy," M says. "You were shouting at something in your room."

"I did start to hallucinate, I remember that much," L says. N grabs his other hand, holding tightly, and M seems relieved for a reason to let go.

"You were unconscious by the time Mail busted the lock," T tells him. "But Watari sedated you anyway."

"I see," L says. Rae let them break into the room, and he let L sleep. That means he made exactly the choice L predicted.

"Could you try to remember not to call people by their names?" M hisses at him. "_Matsuda_!"

"Sorry, sorry. It's just, I've been so worried about L, and..."

"Don't fight, please," N says. "L is fine. We're all going to be fine. Right?"

L nods at her.

"I made an error in calculating how much my own body could stand," he tells her. "Naturally, now that I'm aware of it, it won't happen again."

"It's the Dakis case," she says knowingly. "It's exhausting everyone."

"Oh, yes," L says, rearranging his legs underneath him so he can squat comfortably. "How many more victims have there been?"

"Two more," T says dutifully. "Businessmen. Twins."

L raises his eyebrows.

"When?"

"Reported about an hour after we knocked you out," N says.

"And nothing since then?" L asks. It's not Dakis' style to stop for so long.

N exchanges a glance with M over his head, as if he's not going to notice.

"What is it?"

"She hung herself," M says matter-of-factly. "About twelve hours after those men went missing."

L stares at him.

"Are we certain of this?"

"I went to see the body myself," R says from the door. "It's her, all right. They're happy to write it off as a suicide. I'm not so sure, but where do we even go from here?"

"And would it be worth it?" L touches his chin. "No, why would she kill herself? That's absurd. It doesn't make sense at all."

"Unless she knew we were on the case, and she got so worried she just gave up!" T said brightly.

"I think you need to leave the room now," M tells him.

"But..."

"I think we all need to leave the room," N tells them. "L, get some more sleep."

"Yes," L agrees. Sleep will be nice.

* * *

Predictably, Rae appears as soon as he is alone.

"I see you have chosen to break me," L says, smiling a little.

"You'll wish I hadn't," Rae vows malevolently. L can see he's clutching the notebook.

"You hid this from the others?"

"Of course. I don't want them interfering, that might give you an advantage."

The Shinigami doesn't settle on the edge of his bed as he expects. It stays standing, a good few metres away from the bed. He doesn't know why, but he's grateful for the distance.

"And you were the one who killed Dakis?"

Rae glares at him.

"What are you talking about? I _told_ you I couldn't use this. I'm not even capable of opening it right now. That's the rules."

"I wonder how she died," L muses. "You've heard, I imagine? Fascinating stuff."

"It has to be a murder," Rae tells him.

"Yes," L says. "But how? And why? Who found her?"

"You should just be grateful there's justice in the world other than you," the death god tells him. "Or we'd all be in a lot of trouble."

"I am grateful for that, actually," L says. There are a lot of good police officers in the world, and he admires some of them very much. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get a little more sleep."

He watches its face carefully.

"Of course," Rae snarls. "If _you_ don't mind, I'd rather not be in the same room as you right now."

And then it smiles.

"I'm going to sit outside and...plan."

"Of course," L says.

He knows Rae will be planning a new way to break him. Fine. If nothing else, Rae's presence will make him stronger. No harm in that.

He curls up in bed, stupidly comfortable. He's in his own jeans and shirt still, and he's happy to rest up and wait for some new case to present itself.

When he rolls over, something rustles faintly. If he weren't so familiar with the clothes he's wearing, he wouldn't even have picked up on it.

Still, it definitely shouldn't be there. He doesn't put things in his pockets, it decreases his perceptive powers by point one percent. Point four if its cloudy outside.

L reaches down carefully and extracts a tiny piece of torn paper from the left pocket of his jeans. It's folded carefully in half. On the outside, one letter has been written.

_L_

Strange. No one other than his team can get in or out of the hotel room without being noticed, and this handwriting does not belong to any of them. Intrigued, he opens the note.

_I am the one who killed Dakis. We need to talk. Come alone to Roxbury Park, 1050 Creek Street, London, on Tuesday 29th of November at three o'clock. Rae has a meeting on at this time. Do not tell him about this note._

L reads it five times, then tears it up into forty-five pieces and deposits all of them into the wastepaper bin under the bed.

Someone knows about Rae? Someone who got into this high-security hotel floor and left a message in his pocket without being seen? Someone who murdered Dakis?

They're dangerous, then. They're dangerous to him, and they know too much, and they're trying to get him alone. He is absolutely certain of two things. One is that he definitely shouldn't go and meet this person.

And the other thing is, he's absolutely _got _to meet them.

* * *

No leads appear on Dakis' death, as L expects. Rae reverts to suggesting every criminal under the sun and calling him evil when he doesn't murder them. They fly back to London on the fifteenth of May, at L's request.

They take on a reasonably minor case, an arsonist who probably works alone, and L immerses himself in it for the next two weeks, trying not to do or say anything that will raise Rae's suspicion.

Who can Rae possibly be going to meet with, anyway? Another Shinigami? The king? Or is the person who wrote the note simply lying? They clearly know about Rae's existence, but that's no guarantee the rest of the note was truthful.

And how do they know? Either they had touched his death note, or.

Or perhaps they have a note of their own. Or perhaps Rae _has_ told someone, in an effort to make things difficult for him. The problem is, L doesn't know enough about the Shinigami world or its rules to figure out what Rae's next move might be.

The twenty-eighth rolls around, and L is still trying to decipher the meaning behind the arsonist's movements.

"A church in South Benfleet, a park in Newbury, a store in St Albans, and three homes in London. All on different days. Why?"

Rae leans over him, as if it's going to help him with the case. L pushes it out of the way.

"You know that the note will still work even if I'm not around, right?" it asks L.

"I had imagined as much," L informs it around another spoonful of strawberry ice-cream. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I've told you before. I'm not particularly fond of your company. But I'd hate to see you miss a chance just because I've gotten sick of you."

"I understand," L says.

So...the Shinigami is leaving soon, after all. Interesting.

* * *

Roxbury Park is a good few kilometres from where he's staying. It's still close to the centre of London, but it's also out of the way. Tall trees line all four sides of the park, casting shadows and hiding him from view of the road. There was a series of assaults here five years ago, and since then, no-one really uses the place.

It's a good place to meet if you don't want anyone to know you're meeting.

It's a good place to murder someone, too.

But he feels good. The grass is cool under his feet, and a whole three hours without Rae around has done wonders for his mood. The Shinigami left without a word of explanation around lunchtime, and L hasn't heard from it since.

He's fine with that.

There's a picnic area in one corner. The chairs and tables have been vandalised recently, judging by how bright appearance of the graffiti paint. One leg is missing, and the whole thing wobbles when he sits down.

Watari knows roughly where he'll be, and he still has his belt on. He's not completely stupid.

Another few cars rush past. L takes a lollipop out of his pocket and sticks it in his mouth. The death note is strapped safely to his chest, although he knows he's taking a risk by bringing it out here, to someone who probably knows exactly what it is.

They're cut off completely. If this person wants to hurt him, they'd have a chance. Not a good chance, but a chance. L shifts a little on the table. They'll either come through the trees right next to him, or across the park. The side of the park he has his back to is at the bottom of a steep hill, a twelve-foot wall of rock.

He checks over his shoulder. Nothing.

Before he'd left, N told him to be careful. Nothing unusual about that. She always says that. No one suspects anything will happen to him here. Its probably for the best.

He doesn't hear any footsteps, but he's suddenly aware of someone behind him.

_Scaled twelve feet of rock just to get the jump on me_, L thinks absently. _Interesting_.

"Detective L?"

He doesn't reply. The voice is quiet, and worryingly familiar.

"You're very brave to come out here and meet me all on your own," the voice continues. "Especially since I'm the one who killed _you_."

* * *

tbc


	5. Rules

notes/warnings

+ point-of-view may occasionally shift, both in this chapter and others.

+ edited to change names, because I am stupid. 'wendy' is not 'wedy'. changed her name to 'jasmine' so there's no confusion. I should really think these things through. sorry, guys.

* * *

**Rules**

_You are just a face in the crowd._

_There are people everywhere. Some of them you recognise. Some of them you've never seen before. All of them stare right through you. _

_There's a man with white hair who looks so old you're surprised he's still alive. He's clutching the arm of a much younger woman. You know her name. It's Linda. She's a Wammy's graduate from a long time ago. And just over there is a middle aged woman with a toddler in each arm, who's shouting to someone across the room. And two girls hand-in-hand, clearly looking for a fight from anyone stupid enough to point that fact out to them. They stop and make out about half a metre from you, like they haven't even noticed you're not part of the furniture. A man with six crucifixes hanging from his neck glowers at them and mumbles a prayer under his breath. You're not sure whether he's praying for their salvation, or for them to burn in hell. The girls notice him and turn around, both visibly livid. A big group of young men wander between you and them, and you don't see how the altercation ends.  
_

_So many people, and they all seem so ordinary. Just a grab-bag sample of everyday society._

_But if they're here, then they must have one thing in common. They must all, every one of them, be brilliant._

_This is the Last Convention, a gathering of the great minds. The world's final, and most fervent attempt to defeat the monster that is Kira. _

_Somewhere in the throng are the two people they've all come to see, the only two who could ever have made such a thing possible. Hidden completely because no-one knows their faces, or their names, but they'll all be told enough when the time comes._

_Soon._

_You know their names and their faces, both._

_L. Near. _

_L Lawliet. Nate River._

_Maybe that's why they let you work here tonight. Too worried you'll spill the beans to someone out of spite._

_Maybe you would, too. You'll do a lot of things out of spite. People always tell you that, when they bother to talk to you. They always seem desperate to explain why you're rotten to the core. Why it's lucky you're so incompetent, or maybe you'd be the next mass murderer._

_You know. You're just a security guard here. You're no-one. Kira wouldn't look twice at you, even if you ran up to him with a gun. Not that anyone will let you have a gun. What kind of fucking security is that, anyway?_

_"Hey," says Dwayne, who thinks he's your best friend. "Check out that girl over there. Whoooeee. Is she somethin'?"_

_Dwayne's six foot wide and five foot tall, the only guy at work who's more overweight than you are. He picks his ears constantly, and has the personality of a hosepipe._

_"You should spend more time with him," your boss told you, once. "You need friends. You know, people who are...on your level."_

_Your friends are too good for you. You're everyone's charity case._

_You look in the direction Dwayne's pointing, and there's Jasmine. She's as beautiful as ever, dressed plainly in jeans and a singlet top, with her hair fanned out over her shoulders. She's talking to someone. She's got a smile for everyone, that girl. Even you._

_Fuck Jasmine. She's a size six, huge boobs, eternally happy, ring on her finger the size of the world.  
_

_"She's engaged," you tell Dwayne, but you don't want to talk about it. You don't want to think about it._

_She's engaged to the only person you ever cared about, and you hate her for it._

_But that doesn't matter either. No one cares what you think. _

_Not even him._

* * *

L turns around. He's not quite sure what he was expecting.

"You killed me, did you?" he asks.

The possibility had crossed his mind, although he'd never really been able to work out his exact cause of death. According to the others, Kira had never learned his real name. He'd always presumed Misa Amane had been the missing link, somehow. That's why he'd been so careful to keep her out of the building once the handcuffs had come off.

But he'd never been certain. Not more than thirty-nine percent.

"I'm sorry."

L raises his eyebrows.

"If you are genuinely sorry, then that makes it highly likely you were either obligated or manipulated into killing me. I admit, I'm also mystified as to why a Shinigami would apologise for killing a human. Rem, wasn't it?"

"Yes, that's right."

She's barely changed since L last saw her. He decides she's probably the same breed of death god as Rae, skeleton-like and towering. But Rem has a whole body of vertebrae, instead of Rae's tiny skulls formed into approximations of normal human bones. And her visible eye seems normal, not blazing and fire-engine red. He wonders why.

L's never really formed an opinion of Rem. Back in the Kira days, she had simply been 'the Shinigami' in his mind. L's still not sure what to make of her.

"Strange," he says, sticking his thumb in his mouth. "I imagined I saw you uttery destroyed, right before I died."

He's not sure why he saw it. It was just a flash of colour, a moment of someone else's life thrown in with the fear and surprise and Light's terrible face and the pain in his chest and the big wide flashing 'game over'.

"I was," she says softly. Her voice is ethereal, almost pleasant. "I broke the rules, and was decimated."

"I see," he says. "And yet you are here, as all dead things are."

"It seems the original rules of the death note regarding occurrences after death are misleading," she agrees. "I cannot fully comprehend the meaning of it. However, I can tell you that a Shinigami, once destroyed, is no longer able to return to the human world where it died. So I am here with the dead, instead of there, with the living."

"And the piece of paper you handed me was torn from of your own note," L continues. "So I would be able to see you immediately. Impressive."

"I thought that was the best thing to do," she tells him, apparently ignoring the flattery.

L gets up from the table.

"So, what did you want from me, Rem? Is there somewhere you'd like us to go?"

"Here is fine," Rem says, crouching down so her face is level with his. "We don't have a lot of time, L. I'm not supposed to be speaking to you."

"It seems at times that the rules that govern your species are more complex than the ones that govern mine," he says, smiling a little. "What is it that you wish to tell me?"

She sighs.

"First of all, I want you to know that I protested against the king's assignment to you," she says quietly. "I don't know if it will make you feel better, but the decision was not unanimous."

"I see. This is about Rae."

"Yes, L. How are you? Have you been all right?"

L tilts his head. It's a general question, given the context.

"It's tried to torture me, but not with any success. Since then, we've been fine."

She frowns for a moment.

"The rules are supposed to be that a human cannot be harmed or rescued by an assigned Shinigami," she says. "Also, I am surprised that you use the term 'it'. Most Shinigami have assigned genders. But perhaps you are right, and Rae is best considered as a ...thing."

"It seemed to suit," L says. Some small part of him is enjoying hearing Rae spoken about in this way.

"I apologise, also, for the fact that you have been injured, however much you may brush it off," she adds.

"Cannot be harmed or rescued," L muses. "Is that what you did, Rem? Tried to rescue someone?"

She sighs, and L can feel the sadness emanating from her.

"I did rescue someone," she says. "By killing you."

"Hm."

L crouches down and plucks at a blade of grass, keeping his lollipop safely away from the dirt with his other hand.

"Then, by process of elimination, that person must have been Misa Amane," he deduces.

He was killed within hours of telling Light that Amane would die if convicted. Of course. Then she _was,_ always was, the second Kira. That's how it was done. A revelation. L isn't particularly satisfied by the knowledge, but it's better to know.

It is always better to know.

"Yes," Rem says, so very softly. "I cared for her."

"Inappropriately. And now you cannot get back to her, because you cannot go back to the first human world."

L wonders absently if the entire purpose of death is to separate people from the ones they love.

"It doesn't matter now," Rem says softly.

L's eyes widen.

"Misa is dead?"

"For about six months now," Rem tells him gravely. "She is in hell."

L watches her carefully, mind racing.

"Can you not save her?" he asks lightly, the most important question in the world.

Rem looks briefly horrified.

"From hell? No. I'm afraid that isn't possible. To start with, hell isn't just in one place. It depends on the individual. I have no idea what would constitue hell for Misa, and even if I did, I couldn't be sure of her location. And, of course, to attempt to free someone from hell would result in my permanent dissolution."

"I see," L says. "And it's also impossible for a human to attempt to save another human from hell."

"You would get nowhere," Rem tells him. "No, the only thing to be done is to wait and hope. "

L stares at her.

"Hope? What hope?"

Rem shakes her head and stands up.

"For redemption, of course."

"I thought that was an urban myth," L tells her, and then laughs. "Then again, there was a time when I thought gods of death were nothing more than characters in a child's storybook."

"Redemption is as real as I am," Rem tells him. "But there's nothing you or I can do to influence the course."

She holds a bony finger right in front of his face, as if to illustrate the point.

"Every soul gets one chance, one test, one specified event, choice, or period of time, in which they can redeem themselves. They will not know when it is, or what it is, but those who have some good left in their character will do the right thing, and ejected from hell."

L feels his heart rate pick up, in spite of himself. His protege. Surely.

Surely.

Please.

"I know there is some good left in Misa Amane's heart," Rem says, oblivious to his excited internal monologue. "She will save herself, and soon. In fact, I was going to break the rules again, and send myself on."

L wonders if he should inform her of his own doubts as to Amane's character. To him, she had always been an extension of Light, and therefore, evil.

"Send yourself on?" L asks, instead.

"Redemption means death," Rem tells him. "Those who are in hell will not come back here, no matter what they do. They are moved on."

"Oh."

"So going to where Misa might arrive was my original intention," she continues. "But it appears I need to stay here a little longer and keep an eye on you."

L rests his head in one hand.

"Why?" he asks curiously. "Do you care about me now?"

"Don't flatter yourself," she says. "You hurt Misa, and I have not forgotten that. But I dislike suffering, and I reluctantly recognise that you are not as rotten as other humans."

That's a lie. Or at least, it's not the entire truth.

"You think I'm suffering?"

"I think you will," she tells him pointedly.

"Well, that's a positive sort of attitude," he says boredly.

Rem grabs him by the collar of the shirt and lifts him off his feet with one hand.

"Listen to me, L Lawliet. Shinigami are supposed to be impartial to the human worlds, but that is not always true. I care for people, and you are correct, that is inappropriate. But Rae isn't like me. Rae _hates_ this world, and everything in it, including _you_."

"I see," L says. He's suspected as much. "I can't actually breathe right now."

She sets him back down surprisingly gently.

"So you see, you need to be careful. Rae only wants to be king, and nothing will stand in its way."

"I will," L says calmly.

Rem touches his hand.

"Then you need to have your wits about you, L. Whatever you do, no matter what, you must not surrender your memories to Rae. You must never give up ownership of the death note. It will do you harm you if it gets the slightest opportunity. Such an opportunity must never be given."

"I understand," L tells her sincerely. "Thank you."

Rem seems to deflate a little at his words.

"That's...that's all I have to say to you right now, L. I should leave. Rae's meeting with the king will not last much longer."

"Yes, perhaps that would be best."

_Why couldn't Rem be heir to the throne_, L wonders wildly, irrationally.

Because she'd never succeed in corrupting anyone, of course. She hands him something, another scrap of paper.

"Put it in your belt, the one you wear all the time," she commands. "You'll always be able to see me. Rae will not be able to know you are carrying a piece of my note unless you tell it."

L takes it, surprised.

"Am I likely to see you again?" he asks. She sounds very final.

"Rae will have another meeting in exactly three hundred and sixty-four days," she tells him. "I'll contact you again then."

L tucks the paper into his belt, behind the buckle.

"All right. I may even look forward to it."

She rolls her eyes.

"Don't _you_ go getting attached to _me_, now. Heaven only knows what would happen to a human that develops feelings for a Shinigami."

"I think I'm probably safe," L deadpans. The thought of it makes him want to laugh.

"There is one more thing," she says, stretching her wings. "There is the name of a dead woman on the piece of paper I just gave you. I'd recommend that you do some research on her. You may find her case very...interesting."

L shoves the lollipop back in his mouth.

"Fpeaking of dead women," he says comfortably. "I have one laft requeft of you, too."

"Why did I kill Dakis?" she guesses.

"Yes."

"Because Rae thought it could use her to break you, and she was only useful in that way while she was alive. And...I hate Rae."

"How very linear of you," L says.

And there it was, the real reason she was helping him. Shinigami rivalry. Rem shrugs and starts to flap, the breeze whipping L's hair around his face.

"Good luck, detective," she says as she lifts silently off the ground. "I will see you in one year."

"Goodbye," L says, maybe a little wistfully. "But I won't need your luck, Shinigami."

He'll be fine.

* * *

Rae appears by his side about five minutes later. Rem apparently has very good timing.

"Did you miss me?"

"Were you gone?" L asks. "I thought it had gotten quiet."

"Very funny," Rae says sarcastically. "What have you been doing?"

"We were out of cake," L tells it. The universally-accepted explanation for anything out of the ordinary that L ever does.

"One day your metabolism is going to catch up with you," Rae tells him. "And then you'll be as big as a house."

"Your words wound me," L says conversationally. "Did you realise you've been with me for over four months now?"

"Yess," Rae hisses, as though the mere thought of their situation is disgusting.

"I should get a calendar and start counting down the days," L tells it cheerfully. "Four years and eight months to go."

Rae snorts suddenly, a loud explosive noise, as if its desperately trying to stifle a laugh. It seems to get itself under control quickly, however.

"It won't take that long," the Shinigami tells him. "I promise you."

"How long do you think it will take?" L asks, with interest. "How long until my estimated breaking point?"

"Two years, maximum," Rae tells him haughtily. "I've worked it out. You'll give in. I'll win."

L pushes both hands into his pockets.

Rem had been easy to kill because she cared about people. Rae...he doesn't think Rae's capable of caring for anyone, human or Shinigami. So there's no conceivable way to get rid of it other than waiting for the full five years.

A challenge.

"Two years? Is that all you think of me?" he says sadly. "I was certain you'd give me at least three."

"Aww, were you wrong again, detective?"

L's not really focusing on the banter. His mind is still buzzing, alive with what Rem had told him.

"So, where did you go?" he asks casually. "Don't tell me you're tormenting more than one person at once."

"None of your business if I was," Rae informs him haughtily.

L strokes his neck.

"Of course, if I had to make another guess, I'd say you'd been back to the Shinigami realm," he says blandly. "Giving them an update on me?"

"You think the world revolves around you?" Rae asks darkly.

"Ah," L says meekly. "That's a 'yes', though, isn't it? You've been to see the king. Or someone else that's of a similar calibre. Am I wrong?"

"No one is of a similar calibre to the king except me," Rae informs him. "The others are just Shinigami. Equals."

"Peasants?" L asks, smiling.

"Something like that," the death god says agreeably, apparently preening. "And then, above them, just the king and myself."

"So what makes you special?" L asks. "For that matter, what makes the king special? Intelligence alone, or something else?"

"I guess you'll never know. What a pity."

"I'm more interested in whether _you_ know," L tells it. The more he learns about the gods of death, the more he's fascinated by them. Rae ignores him, but he had expected that.

L walks in silence for a while, while the Shinigami stares at the sky, watching the crows wheeling past. London is a big city, a filthy city. L somewhat adores it.

"You're not allowed to torture me any more, are you?" L asks after a good ten minutes.

Rae's eyes widen for a split second before it snarls at him.

"You're guessing!"

"Eh, I just figured it had to be against the rules," L says comfortably. "And now I know."

He's pleased when Rae sputters and doesn't respond.

Small victories, small victories.

* * *

L doesn't really invest a lot of effort in the arsonist case. At least, not until two weeks later, when someone reports a new sort of fire.

Lambeth. Middle of London. Right on his front doorstep.

They race to the scene, mostly because they've all been bored the past few days. It's still nothing special, not really. The police could still probably handle it. They're only doing it because it suits them.

Despite the case's unimportance, what he sees is still a shock to him. No-one ever really gets used to the image of a charred human body with the flesh burning off the bones.

"Still on fire," Raye says, surprised. "We got here quickly, but I didn't think..."

The tip off had been a call from a public phone, a muffled voice that had refused to identify itself. L had listened to the police recording of the conversation during the drive.

The victim is nailed to a crucifix, set on fire in the middle of a church.

Cocky. They'd been cocky. No guarantee someone wouldn't walk in, not in a place this popular and close to town.

The building is undamaged, all brick and stone, not really flammable. The near-life-sized cross is the only wooden thing around, the flames throwing shadows that dance across the wall. M stares at the body with a blank expression on his face, his hands shaking so hard even Matsuda notices.

N grabs him and wraps her arms over his eyes.

"Don't look," she says. "Don't look, don't look."

M is more trouble than he's worth, sometimes.

"Anyone know who this person is?" Matsuda asks. T asks. He scratches his head, his expression intensely sad. Despite all the years of detective work - of murder and mutilation and rape and suffering - T's never become even the least bit desensitized. L doesn't know how he survives.

"The forensics team are on their way," Watari says, catching up with them. "You need to take any evidence you want now, L."

R's already got his phone out, snapping pictures like the excellent spy he is. L walks closer, and peers at the body, almost in range of the flames.

"I'll laugh if your head catches on fire," Rae tells him, poking at the victim's chest. L follows his movement. There's an unusual dent in what remains of the flesh, like something was cut into it shortly before death. A curved line and an adjoining horizontal line. The number 2.

"I don't think I need any samples," L announces quietly. "It's fine. Just have them send the pathology report. We need to know who he or she was."

He's still holding a spoon between his fingertips, a remnant of the pineapple jelly he'd been enjoying not sixteen minutes ago.

"I think this was intentional," he says, finally. "Sixty-one percent sure this was intentional. I just don't know whether it's significant."

It seems like nothing, like the sort of thing even T could solve on his own. But the arson has turned to murder without any good reason at all, and L has an odd itchy feeling, like he's missing something.

"We'll wait and see how this plays out," he mutters.

* * *

Five days later, another building goes down in flames. Only this time, it's in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. A school in Westhill, a whole building burned down to the ground by the time anyone realised what was happening.

"With no one inside," N tells him. "No deaths. Nobody unaccounted for."

L stares at the report in front of him, absently stacking dirty saucers into a tower with his left hand.

"So, very similar to the initial six attacks," he says slowly.

"Identical, according to my research," M tells them. He's sitting crosslegged on the floor, laptop resting on his knees. "In each case so far, the fire was started with a mixture of oil and kerosene, used to douse one particular item of furniture. In each case, the remains of a cigarette lighter was found in the ruins. In each case, no hair, no skin cells, no footprints or fingerprints, no incriminating evidence left at the scene."

"So we're looking at one person - or group of people - responsible for the building fires, and a second responsible for burning Karl Ricketts at the stake?" T asks, swinging his legs. L wishes he wouldn't sit on the desk like that. It's irritating.

"I wish it were that simple," L tells him wearily. "The attacks are too different in nature to suspect that one is simply a copycat, and the yet conditions of Ricketts' murder are identical to the other incidents, right down to the type of lighter used. I'm forty-five percent certain we're dealing with one person - or one group - who is responsible."

"The same person?" R muses. "But why? I can understand if the original fires were leading up to the murder, but why go back to setting buildings alight afterwards?"

"It's a new place," N tells him. They're holding hands. "Scotland. Maybe our arsonist is trying to see how many times they can get away with it?"

"Or was it a statement?" T wonders. "Was he saying 'hey, I consider Karl Ricketts to just be a piece of furniture'?"

"That was a surprisingly intelligent remark," M informs him blandly.

"Thanks!"

Karl Ricketts. The dux of the Essex Young Genius Aggregation, a very selective tertiary education facility that prides itself on producing brilliant scientists. He was twenty-two, lived with his disabled sister, and worked around the clock in a pharmacological research laboratory. Trying to find a medical cure for cancer. Atheist. Excellent cricket player. Both parents dead. Didn't have a lot of social skills, preferred to stay at home.

"Why would anyone want to kill him?" N asks the room in general. "I mean, was it jealousy, because he was brilliant? Or did someone object to his research?"

"Whatever it was, they went to an awful lot of trouble for no apparent reason," M comments.

"He was said to have an IQ to rival your own, L," R joins in cautiously. "If they're going after geniuses..."

"Then they'll come after me, next," L murmurs, cupping his chin in his hand. "Fascinating. But I doubt intellect is the sole motivation."

He snaps his fingers and points to a photograph lying on the table in front of him, one of the ones that R had taken as the body burned.

"Why burn an atheist on a cross? There's a religious component to the motive, I suspect."

"How suspicious are you?" Rae asks sweetly. "Come on, I _really _want to know. Give me an answer accurate to at least the ninth decimal place."

L stares at the Shinigami stonily.

"And the mark on his chest," M says, "is bothering me. Why two? What's the significance. Was there a first murder by this arsonist that we missed?"

"Can we have an alias for the arsonist, now?" T asks petulantly. "What about Arcy?"

"We're not even convinced it's one person yet," N tells him exasperatedly. "Please don't go getting ahead of yourself."

"Can't he focus on the task at hand for more than five minutes?" Rae asks cattily, gesturing at Matsuda.

"I'm uneasy about this, L," R says bluntly.

"I don't believe anyone is at an increased level of danger right now," L tells R. "There's no indication that our arsonist will murder again."

Actually, L is already twenty-seven percent certain that there will be a second murder. Or a third, if M's guess is correct.

"I do find it interesting, however," he continues, "that the body was reported to the police station just down the street, when the West End Station is about four suburbs closer to the location of the church."

"That hadn't occurred to me," N admits, sounding a little disappointed in herself. "This whole thing doesn't seem to make any sort of sense."

True. If they'd intended the body to be discovered still burning, why risk contacting police who were further away?

"Not yet," L agrees. "But regardless, I think we should move to our base in Scotland for the next few weeks. Whatever is going to happen, I'd like us to be close by. Starting tomorrow."

Perhaps that's what their arsonist wants. Perhaps.

"T and N, until tomorrow morning, I want to you gather all the information there is on Ricketts. His job, his family, his research, his movements, what he ate for breakfast, everything."

"Yes, L. I will," T says excitedly.

"Of course," N says calmly.

M's still trying to create an accurate representation of the voice of the mystery phone-caller, and R's trying to work out a link between the first six fires, other than that they all occurred within a certain distance of London.

For now, N is right. Nothing adds up. None of the finer details make a lick of sense, yet. L wonders what's going to happen next.

It's too early to start making predictions

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ just wanted to thank the people who are actually reading this mostly-stupid story, you are very much appreciated. it's kinda written mostly for myself, and half the time I'm not even sure it makes logical sense. so, thanks. :)

+ next chapter might not be up for a while.


	6. Flame

notes/warnings

+ pairings: now with light implied matsuda/wedy.

+ warnings for matt being politically incorrect.

+ here be foreshadowing.

+ this chapter brought to you by google maps!

* * *

**Flame**

Three days later, a fishing boat in Huntley goes up in smoke and sinks. There's no way to tell if it's arson or accident.

M is quiet, even more so than usual, still not recovered from the burning cross. N and R are simultaneously twitchy and apparently craving affection, and L unsubtly orders them to move to a more soundproof bedroom after the first night. Their hotel is in Aberdeen itself and huge. An entire two floors just for them.

Their reputation precedes them, apparently.

"Abe Malcolm, convicted kidnapper, escaped from jail yesterday. Auckland, New Zealand. The police can't find any trace of him."

"No."

"You're honestly not concerned for the kids in the area?" Rae asks him blackly. "He was last sighted two blocks from a kindergarten, and you're just going to do _nothing_?"

"I am neither in Auckland, nor am I the police," L reasons calmly.

"And of course, you won't ever have to talk to the mother of the next victim, when it inevitably happens again. Which is good, because how would you ever tell her you had the chance to stop Malcolm and didn't?"

The Shinigami has done nothing but quote names and crimes at him for the past forty-nine hours. Not random offences, either, but serious ones. The sort of crimes that L would love to be able to stop dead, then and there, leaving the world a safer place.

God, it's good. He'll give it that. It's good.

But he still won't.

"If you want to make yourself useful, you can help with the Arcy case," he says, valiantly not rolling his eyes at the way Matsuda's stupid name has stuck.

There's no pattern. It almost seems as if a random location and a random structure are selected, with the only guidelines being the general area. Last time it was close to London, this time near the Aberdeenshire region.

"I can't help you with the Arcy case," Rae tells him with distaste. "Until you find out the identity of the perpetrator, my notebook is useless to you."

"You yourself could still help," L says. "There can never be too many minds on a case. Hmm."

He sucks on his fingertips, staring at the computer screen.

"If we presume there's always a series of fires preceding a murder, then surely the fires have some purpose. A declaration, a cry for help, a hint about what's going to happen. It can't be random, surely."

"How do you know it's not a simple thing?" Rae asks. "A few fires in the same general region, then kill someone in that region, then move on?"

"Perhaps," L says, considering the possibility. "No. No, Arcy is overconfident. He's got something to say. He commits crimes in places he could easily be caught. And then there's the number two. It's got to mean something, and by something, I don't just mean 'I'm a crazy arsonist'."

Rae doesn't answer. It has apparently returned to the task of fanatically scouring the news, searching for someone who might tempt L. To be honest, he's surprised it even commented on the arson case at all.

"Lisa Duffield. A prison security guard who was found to be torturing and humiliating the inmates. High pressure hosing, force-feeding, mutilation, the lot. An abuse of power, if I ever saw one."

"Just like using the death note," L says agreeably, and takes a bite of cake.

* * *

"I have a theory," N tells him the next day. L raises his chin at her. He's always interested in exactly how quickly his team can catch up with him.

"Tell me."

She blows her fringe out of her eyes.

"Ricketts had a fairly popular following, and was held up as the most intelligent man in England by more than a few reputable organisations, right?"

"That certainly seems to be the case," L agrees.

"What if the number two isn't intended to be a numeral, but rather….a placeholder?"

L gives her a tiny smile, pleased. N catches up quickly.

"So not two, but...second," M says from the balcony, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He's on his nineteenth smoke break of the morning.

"I had considered that possibility myself," L tells them. "It certainly has merit. 'Ricketts isn't the best, _I'm_ the best. I'll show you. I can outsmart him. I can kill him. He's only second. _I'm_ first.' I wonder if that's what Arcy was thinking?"

"If that is the case, then we're looking for a deranged genius," R surmises. "Someone who's probably also well-known, but not considered to be quite as good as Karl Ricketts by the general public."

There's a pause.

"The natural assumption would be Abigail McWhirter, wouldn't it?" T asks them. "I mean, there's a well documented rivalry between the two of them, ever since that newspaper described Ricketts as having the highest intellect in the United Kingdom three years ago."

Rae comes back from wherever it's been and crowds over L to stare at his computer monitor. L watches it with interest. Despite its attitude yesterday, it seems to be almost curious about their present case.

Seems to be.

"Yes," L replies, pouring himself some tea. "I agree. The media does like to make them sound as if they are competing."

"There's a big jump from rivalry to murder," N muses, cradling her own mug in both hands. "Have we really got grounds for suspecting this woman?"

"We can suspect whoever we choose to," L reminds her. "What we need for an arrest, however, is evidence. And I do agree, there is little evidence at this stage implicating McWhirter, and all of it is circumstantial."

"She lives in Scotland, yes?" R asks.

"She works in Schoolhill," M clarifies in his usual deadpan. "She's a zoologist. Her life's work has been dedicated to making computerised and robotic animal models to be used for research. She's a passionate animal rights activist, according to her blog."

"I would like to speak with her," L says. "She _is_ our prime suspect at present, however tenuously. I think I will go and see her today. Of course, she may not be willing to tell us anything, but that, in itself, will tell us something."

He gets up from his chair and stretches, before hitting the intercom button.

"Watari?"

"Yes, L?" Watari's voice crackles through the speaker.

"Get me a car, please. Something unobtrusive. We've got work to do."

* * *

When L wants to be taken seriously, he takes N. When he wants to appear perfectly normal, he takes R. When he wants to scare the living daylights out of someone, he takes M.

But when he wants someone to presume he's harmless, he takes T.

"I haven't been to a university since I was seventeen!" he says, excitedly, when they arrive.

"We're not here to enjoy ourselves, remember?" L asks, slamming the door. "We need to speak with Abigail, and I need you to be at the top of your form."

T fidgets with the keys.

"I don't really have a form," he says sadly. "I'm just ordinary, a little reckless, and too hyperactive."

He's clearly quoting something R has said to him in the past.

"That _is_ your form," L tells him bluntly. "And it's very frequently useful."

T gapes at him.

"I...oh. Really? I'm _useful?_"

"Come on, we're going to Genie's cafe," L says, before the situation becomes unduly awkward.

"A cafe? I thought we were going to Abigail's office?" T slants a look at L. "Or is this about cake?"

L sighs. He's not even particularly _fond_ of cake, emotionally. He just runs on it, the way a car runs on petrol.

It's not an addiction. Really, now.

"Professor McWhirter frequents this particular cafe," he tells T. "If she's as popular as she's reported to be, then people will be talking about her. I want to hear what they have to say. We'll stay for two hours, then pay her a visit during her tea break at four o'clock."

"Good thinking," T says brightly, as if L needs to be told.

* * *

The cafe is busy, and they have to squeeze all the way to the back of the room just for a place to sit. The table is low, and L has to push his chair out to be able to squat comfortably. Matsuda kicks his legs out and grins.

"I'll have black tea with eight sugars," L says immediately. "And two slices of chocolate cake."

M's not here. He can have chocolate.

"Need refueling, huh?"

L pushes a wad of notes at him.

"Get anything you want for yourself, too."

T needs to be the one mingling. People might be uncomfortable around a young man with a hunch and creepy black eyes, but they won't be bothered by the bouncing, smiling idiot that is T. He'll hear things, if there's anything to hear.

"I'm pretty certain that blue Yaris was following you on the highway," Rae says, as soon as he's gone.

"Yes, I had spotted that, too," L tells it quietly.

"This is bizarre," it says, after a pause. "The only thing I can conclude is that Arcy must be insane. Even _I_ can't work out what he wants, and I'm smarter than _you._ Mind you, you'd have to be pretty stupid to be certain that a stalker is irrelevant."

L stares up at it thoughtfully.

"You've been trying to work this case out, have you? How unusual. Are you taking an interest in the human world, now?"

The Shinigami rolls its red eyes and goes back to hovering in the corner, ignoring him.

Matsuda comes back with their food and drinks. He's ordered himself some sort of ridiculously large sandwich containing cheese, meat, and what appears to be an entire tomato. His drink is tall and frothy, and contains a paper umbrella. Typical.

_Never ever change_, L thinks, suddenly, and frowns. Sentimentality does no one any good, after all. He can't afford to get too set in his ways, too at home with his little group. He works alone, needs to always be able to work alone.

One day, there will be a case that will only be compromised if the others are involved. And when that day comes, he'll need to be prepared dissolve his little L squad and go on alone.

Well, alone with the demon that follows him everywhere. Rae is hardly company. In fact, L considers that it's seventy-six percent likely that the presence of the Shinigami has influenced him to spend more time with the others, just for a distraction from its grating voice, and its awful _eyes_.

Not that it's affecting him. He can handle it.

And he needs to remind himself that even in the unlikely event that such a case never comes, N and R will eventually want to settle down and have a moderately normal life, and M will probably get himself killed or snap and turn evil, and that will be the end of it, anyway.

He's not sure about T, or what T wants from life. He thinks even T doesn't know, yet.

"Evening boys," a familiar voice drawls, and L snaps out of his reverie.

A tall woman, dressed sharply in a skirt suit and sunglasses, and wearing what L knows is a strawberry-blonde wig, smiles down at them.

"I was wondering when you were going to stop tailing us from a distance," L tells her calmly. "Wedy."

Matsuda blinks.

"Wedy?" he sputters, eyes flying from her to L. "But she's...L, should we arrest her?"

"Only if she's stupid enough to visit me when I'm working with the police," L informs him. He glances at her. "I trust you have some information for me?"

She doesn't answer him straight away. She's still staring at Matsud...at T.

"Well, didn't you get cute since I last saw you," she says thoughtfully. T flushes and stares resolutely at the floor.

Wedy laughs to herself, and drops gracefully into the spare chair.

"Of course I have something for you, honey," she says. "I wouldn't dare show my face, otherwise."

"Then I would suggest you say your piece and leave. You don't want to draw too much attention, surely."

The chocolate cake is really good. He may need to buy a box of it to take back to London. Maybe he can tell M its blackberry, or something.

"You can be very boring sometimes," Wedy informs him.

"Yes. I pride myself on it."

"Very well. I went to London a week ago on other business. Shortly after that, I realised I was being followed."

"I imagine they didn't get very far," L comments. He keeps contact with Wedy because she's incredibly intuitive. She may have even saved his life once.

"Well, they certainly weren't an amateur," she elaborates. "It took me a good few hours before I was certain of her intentions."

T picks up his fork, apparently recovered enough from his earlier embarrassment to try eating again. He's the only person L knows who uses utensils to eat a sandwich. Wedy watches him with interest, and T manages to miss his mouth completely and dump the whole forkful in his lap.

"Wedy, please try and focus," L says lightly.

"Right. So this woman eventually approaches me, after I make it obvious I know she's there. Turns out she knows my name and what I do for a living, neither of which are huge secrets, but still. What she wants to know, though, is information about L."

"Oh?"

Wedy lowers her voice.

"She tells me she has information that I'm in contact with L, and she wants to know if I've met him personally, where he lives, what cases he's working on right now. Keeps calling him the 'best detective in the world'. Of course, I told her I didn't know what she was talking about and that she was misinformed. She left, not long after that."

"Interesting," L whispers. "I wonder what she was looking for?"

"Seemed to be a huge fan," Wedy says, taking a drink of T's smoothie. "Ugh, what's in this? It's disgusting?"

"Sorry?" Mats...T manages, cowering.

"Did you get her name?"

"Identified herself only as Ellen," Wedy tells him. "Not older than her thirties, but I can't tell you much about how she looked, because she was wearing sunglasses, and had a scarf on over her head. She had a mole on the left corner of her upper lip. Lithe build. About five foot five tall total, but I don't know what sort of shoes she had on."

L rubs a hand over his mouth, considering this.

"I was aware there were fans, I suppose," he says softly.

He's disappointed. She usually comes to him with more important information than this. L wonders absently if she's lonely, too. Or maybe she's just losing her touch.

"Could be nothing," Wedy agrees. "But it struck me as just strange enough. She was obviously a pretty talented spy in her own right. Additionally, it's been a while since I've had the pleasure of your company."

She stands up in a fluid movement, and flashes a smile at him.

"Yes, you probably ought to leave now," L agrees calmly. "Thank you for the things you said, I'll keep them in mind."

She must have been really bothered by the Ellen woman, L decides. It's true that his persona isn't a secret to the world, but very few people know who is connected to him, and even fewer would try and get close to him. It's fairly common knowledge that L is suspicious of people trying to get close to L.

So, a stupid fan, then. Or at least, an ignorant one.

Wedy salutes him, almost mockingly.

"I can tell you're not impressed, but I call it as I see it. Strange things are going on, honey. Take care of yourself"

"I always take care of myself."

"Obviously not, or you wouldn't be here," she says with a smirk, and turns to walk away.

"Goodbye!" Matsuda yells frantically, dragging his head back up off the table.

Wedy doesn't even look back.

* * *

"Have you recovered yet?" L asks as they climb the second set of stairs that lead to McWhirter's office.

"From what?" T asks, smiling nervously.

"From Wedy."

He's going to have to ask her not to hit on his more vulnerable members of staff in the middle of missions. Despite what M might say, T in his normal state is not as useless as T when he's grossly distracted and unnerved. L would have preferred the former.

He didn't overhear anything of note in the cafe. All mentions of Abigail had been general, and mostly admiring. He'd caught a few complaints from people who were obviously her employees about how high-maintenance she was, and one student bragging to another about getting a job with her next year. Nothing incriminating. Yet.

"She's...kind of friendly, isn't she?"

"Not usually," L tells him, which seems to cause him to shake even more.

"What a useful young man," Rae says sardonically. "You have totally proved to me how he is working hard for you, and not in any way trying to cause you to fail."

"Ah."

L blows his fringe out of his eyes, irritated.

"Do you remember who you're supposed to be?" he asks.

T thinks.

"Yes? Am I really going to pass for a prospective student? I'm over thirty."

"One, you don't really look it, and two, there are plenty of mature-age students studying these days," L tells him. "It shouldn't matter."

"Right. Hold on, what were our names, again?"

"You are David Slip. I am Lionel Finch."

"David. Lionel. Right. Hey, Lionel's not your real name, is it?"

L ignores that last remark.

"I always wondered what the story was behind your name," Rae says curiously. "Were your parents just lazy, or were they actually mad?"

L ignores that one, too.

"So, should I try to sound Scottish?"

"Please don't."

They've arrived on the top floor. McWhirter's office is predictably huge. Both doors are closed, but the light is clearly on inside. L raps limply on the polished wood with one hand.

"Come in," calls a harassed-sounding voice, and he pushes the door aside to reveal a luxurious-looking room, with a middle-aged woman sitting behind an expensive desk, staring at them.

Based on some general profiling, there's a ninety-two percent chance she'll be happy to entertain interested, enthusiastic, intelligent prospective students. Between the two of them, he and T are all three.

"Professor McWhirter? I'm David, and this is Lionel. We're _huge_ admirers of your work," T gushes, right on cue.

Abigail sighs, her grey braid flopping against her shoulder.

"I don't really have time to see anyone right now," she says, sounding a little stressed. "I'm sorry. Two of my macaques are ill, and the vet's coming to look at them in ten minutes."

Aside from her computer-substitute work, McWhirter keeps an elaborate menagerie in the next building. They took a look at it on the way here. Each enclosure has been specifically designed to provide for every single physical, mental, and emotional need of the animals. Sound, lighting, terrain, artificial sky, robotic mates, elaborate foraging mechanisms, everything. L was more than a little impressed by the sheer attention to detail.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he says, as compassionately as he can manage.

"Oh, that's all right," T says brightly. "We can come down with you, if you'd like. I _love_ macaques."

L is eighty-eight point two percent certain he doesn't actually know what macaques are. In fact, there's at least a three percent chance T thinks they're either a muscial instrument or a breakfast cereal.

Abigail regards them both with open distrust.

"No, thank you," she says sternly. "Any students wishing to meet with me need to make an appointment with the faculty reception. It's two floors down. Also, if you were attempting to make a good impression, I'd suggest not turning up unannounced, and actually grooming yourselves beforehand. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have things to do."

And she gets up and turns her back to them, grabbing a few books off the shelf behind her, probably at random.

"Plan two it is," L says under his breath.

"I thought so," Rae says from somewhere behind him.

"Okay," T whispers. He grabs his wallet, and opens it to show his other ID, the one that says _Federal Police_.

"I apologise for deceiving you," he says, thankfully sounding calm and relatively mature. "We needed to be sure you were really Abigail McWhirter."

Abigail pauses and raises her eyebrows at both of them. L pulls his own fake ID from his shirtsleeve.

"Officers? I can guess what this is about," she says unhappily. "What do you want?"

"We're making enquiries about the death of Karl Ricketts," L begins.

"And you think I did it?" she asks curtly. "Of course. You're not the first. I'd love to know who actually reported me, though. I thought it would stop with the silly rumours."

"Why would you say that?" L says thoughtfully. "Do we have reason to consider you are a suspect in Ricketts' murder?"

"Of course not," McWhirter says bitterly. "I despise cruelty in all forms. Why do you think I do what I do?"

"But it's true that you stand to benefit from Ricketts' death, in status, if nothing else," L tells her. "I suppose that's why the rumours started?"

Abigail tilts her head in his direction.

"For all you imply I'm not a suspect, this is definitely an investigation. I know when someone is sussing me out."

L smiles at the lingo.

"Of course, maybe you don't feel that you stand to benefit from his murder at all. Perhaps you believe that you were always better than Ricketts. That he was always second to you?"

Abigail glares at him, clearly insulted.

"Don't you dare," she breathes. "I know the circumstances surrounding his death well enough to know what you're implying. Ricketts was the same age as my son, and someone _set him on fire and left him to die_. So arrest me, if you're going to arrest me, or else I'll press some charges of my own. Harassment, in fact."

"Er," Matsuda says quietly. "Er, that's not why -"

"_Do_ either of you have anything of consequence to say?" she asks. "I take it if you had a warrant you'd have shown it to me by now."

L gives her a crooked grin.

"You realise we could arrest you for obstructing this investigation?"

"My macaques are suffering," she informs him darkly. "If a court would place your stupid and unnecessary investigation before their lives, then I don't think I much care for our justice system."

"You and me both," Rae says in a derogatory sort of voice.

"Fair enough," L tells her. "You may go."

* * *

They leave, after breaking back into Abigail's office and downloading all of her files from her computer.

"Do you think she did it?" T asks inanely.

That's never the right question. The right question is how _much_ does he think she did it.

"I'm about eight percent certain," he tells T. "She is very convincingly indignant. And there's no record of her travelling anywhere in the past month, according to her data log she's been right here, working."

"But she's brilliant, so we can expect that she wouldn't leave a trace, anyway," T asks.

"I don't think it's her," Rae says, close to L's ear.

L files that away for future reference. The heir of the Shinigami king thinks she's innocent. Does that hold any weight at all?

He's not sure.

"Everyone leaves traces, with everything they do," L tells T resolutely. "It's only a matter of how obvious that trace is."

"Even...?"

"You caught him, didn't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"Then it's settled," he says with finality. "Don't worry about it. If Abigail is responsible, I'll find out, and we'll arrest her."

"That simple, huh?"

"Yes."

For the past sixteen years, ever since he started as a detective, he's lost exactly once. Once. Too many times.

He's never going to live it down. Everyone knows. It drives him to do better, to work harder, to let it never happen again. It makes him a better sleuth. It drives him insane, to distraction, to despair. Kira hangs over him all the time, a shadow across his face, a blemish on his record.

_Failure_, his inner Near-voice reminds him. _You lost. He won._

L grips the steering wheel tighter than is strictly necessary for safe driving.

Thank god Light's in fucking hell.

* * *

There's nothing incriminating in the files on Abigail's computer, but M hacks through all of them anyway.

Then there are three more fires over the next four days, two of them just ten hours apart. A library in Alford, burned all the way to the ground. A distillery in Keith made completely unusable. Then a cottage in Farmtown. Firefighters managed to save most of it.

"They're all so close together," M murmurs. He's got the coordinates of the first six fires and the last four fires printed in front of him, trying to decipher if there's any sort of code.

"Yes, so they're clearly a warning that the second death will be in _this_ area," N agrees.

"If there is a second death," L tells her. "I agree that right now, it's looking like a pattern. Even more so since they found that lighter in the fishing boat wreckage."

"If that's true, and this is a pattern, then the next person will be killed after the next fire," T says, demonstrating his profound understanding of basic maths.

They've listened to M's best approximation of the real voice of the caller, and it's definitely a woman, northern Irish accent, slight lisp.

"What, can't you deduce what her face looks like from the recording?" Rae had asked him in mock-shock. "What kind of a detective _are_ you?"

The Shinigami seems to have resorted to sarcasm, snide comments, and general pettiness. L gets the distinct impression it's considering its options, and biding its time. He doesn't doubt there will be future onslaughts of emotional torment, if not physical torture.

Intriguing.

It follows L mostly silently, giant knife-winged demon, the stuff of nightmares. L has no idea what it's thinking, most of the time.

But right now, it seems to be thinking about...Arcy.

"Who do we think the next victim is going to be?" T asks, snapping him back to here and now.

"I imagine we've all got our own theories," L says. "If Abigail is not Arcy, then she's probably in danger."

"There's a chance that number two could have been a reference to the next victim, if we're dealing with a serial killer," R agrees. "We've killed number one, the next one will be number two?"

"The National Police have already offered her protection," N says, worriedly. "She turned it down."

"Sounds like she's guilty, to me," M says. "Otherwise she'd be worried."

"Or just stubborn," N reminds him. "Never presume that highly successful people will be sensible regarding their own safety."

"I'll say," R agrees, looking right at L.

"Even if we're sure it's here, we still don't know how and where," L reminds them.

"Burn her on a cross in the middle of a church, I guess," T says. "If it really is a pattern."

"It wouldn't hurt to put surveillance in all of the major churches in the Aberdeenshire area," R agrees.

"Yes," L says. "I had that done yesterday. Watari is monitoring the feed. However, Abigail is Protestant, not atheist. If she is targeted, then there is far less likely to be a religious component to the motive."

"At which point you should be worried, right?" R asks sternly. "I mean, you told us you were safe because Ricketts was burned as an atheist, not a genius. The entire police force knows you're working on this case. I wouldn't put it past Arcy to have you lined up as a victim."

"I would like to see him try," L says in a satisfied sort of voice. "It's been a while since anyone directly attempted to murder me. It would be difficult, since no one knows my name, or my face. And our location here is strictly classified information. Even the head of police thinks we're staying at a hotel two streets over."

"If only we could predict the next place they're gonna burn something," M says calmly. "We might be able to just catch them in the act and be done with it."

L stares at his computer screen, a jumble of the names of the various scenes of crime. There's no connection. Big cities, small towns. Vehicles, homes, famous buildings, trees. Why?

"This is obviously a cry for attention," Rae says, presumably to itself.

L scans the room carefully. The others are all busy with their own tasks.

"What attention, I wonder?" he says, barely a whisper.

"You okay, L?" R asks. "You're talking to yourself."

"Vocalising evidence is a valid way of processing it," L tells him calmly.

"I don't know," Rae says. "But why else go to all that trouble just to burn a cross into the ground?"

L opens up a word document and types.

_I'm more interested in the six previous fires_, he types.

"That's what I meant," the Shinigami clarifies. "If you plot the locations of the first six fires on a map, you can draw a crucifix connecting all the dots. But why? Why take the time to map it out?"

L brings up a map of London with two strokes of his keyboard, and stares.

"Of course," he says slowly. "You're right."

_Interesting. Why did you notice, Rae? What are you up to?_

"Could you stop talking to yourself now?" N asks. "It's getting distracting, L."

* * *

L doesn't actually mind showers. They're warm, and they often smell like sweets, and he feels good when he's finished with them. It just seems like so much effort to actually take all his clothes off, get wet, get dried off again, and put clean clothes on. Effort that he'd prefer to spend on more important ventures, like deciphering Arcy's latest code. But both Watari and N insisted, so he concludes he must have begun to smell fairly offensive.

His shampoo is strawberry scented, and if he doesn't concentrate when using it, he'll absently put it in his mouth.

"So, what do you make of the locations of the fires in Aberdeenshire, then?" he asks. He knows Rae is standing in the bathroom proper, just beyond the shower curtain.

"Nothing so far," Rae says primly. "And why would you ask _me_? Is your awesome team not as brilliant as you'd hoped?"

"You've been surprisingly helpful so far," L replies. "I was merely seeking your opinion."

"I have no intention of being helpful,' the Shinigami says. It's trying to sound haughty, but it's clearly aggravated.

"Of course you do," L says, turning to rinse the suds out of his hair. "You're trying to be helpful to point out my own inadequacies, and therefore why I should use the death note."

_Or maybe there's another reason. What do you say, heir to the king?_

There's a pause from outside. L wonders absently whether Rae can see his gestures through the curtain. In some respects, he's gotten used to having the death god follow him around, and he's unbothered by the fact that it's seen him naked. In fact, it's safer this way. He can't take the death note in the shower, so it's sitting on the floor by the sink. He's eighty-one percent confident that Rae will warn him if someone else is going to accidentally come in, because it believes it will be at a disadvantage if any of the others know L owns a note.

Which suits him just fine.

L touches his chest. He's getting chafe marks under his arms from the holster. Maybe he needs to line it with something.

"I just can't believe you're happy to let someone else burn," Rae says, sighing. "You're such a big disappointment, Lawliet."

L likes to amuse himself by imagining a mental scoreboard, between himself and the Shinigami. He counts the points at the end of the day. He usually wins.

"Only because you thought I'd be easy to corrupt," L says, grinning to himself.

Point for L.

Rae laughs, a horrible throaty giggle that grates on L's nerves more than anything else, although he's not really sure why.

"You have no idea what I'm thinking," Rae says. "You're guessing, and theorising, and calculating possibilities, but you're not _sure_. You're never sure. Are you? Have you ever been one hundred percent sure, L?"

L stares at the wall.

Point for Rae.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ honestly did not realise this one storyline had accumulated so many words until I finished writing it, ugh. hope it didn't seem to drag on and on.

+ thank you.


	7. Difficult

notes/warnings

+ argh! I'm sorry this is so freaking long. I couldn't find a good place to split this chapter up.

* * *

**Difficult**

L is sleeping soundly when T bounces into his room.

"L! L! Ryuuzaki! L! Wake up!"

L sits up before he's even properly conscious, and groans.

"I'm sure there were too many exclamation marks in that statement," Rae mutters from its corner.

"What is it?" L asks, going from sleepy to alert in approximately five seconds. "What's happened?"

"There's been another fire. A construction site in Inverurie. No deaths. Authorities think the blaze started about two hours ago."

L is on his feet in an instant.

"Are the others awake?"

"Right here," Naomi calls from outside, and M sticks his head in the doorway.

"What do you want us to do, L?"

L stares for a moment. M looks ruffled, almost like he's been sleeping.

He shakes his head. Wishful thinking.

"I want you and N to go down to the site, confirm whether or not it's Arcy's usual style. T? We're going to need coffee."

"Awww, I always have to make the coffee."

"And R, I want you to contact Watari. Get him to project the surveillance feed to the screen in the second office. I'll meet you there soon."

"Yes, L."

When they're gone, he closes his own door and reaches for his laptop.

"Arcy is picking up the pace," he says thoughtfully.

"It's almost as if the fast you investigate, the faster he goes," Rae muses.

"I was thinking the same thing," L agrees, loading the Aberdeenshire map again.

"Which means he's either calculated the movements of his detectives very accurately, or you really _do _have someone inside leaking information."

The Shinigami sounds different. Almost…worried.

"Doesn't this map load any faster?"

"I doubt we're as short on time as you seem to believe, Rae," L says, as it finally appears on the screen. He moves the cursor to place a big red cross over Inverurie, the sixth fire. Then he stands up, unceremoniously.

There's time to test a new theory, at any rate.

"I need to make some adjustments to the switchboard before I can work this out," he says flippantly.

"What?"

"It is highly likely that Arcy will contact the authorities again," L informs the death god. "If that's the case, I need to be absolutely contactable in all circumstances, and I need to have traces on all lines. It should take me thirty minutes, at the most."

"This isn't just about not wanting to use the death note," Rae sneers. "You honestly just don't care how many people die. You've got to do everything your way, even if it means more people get hurt. As long as you catch a criminal in the end, and get to look like a big hero, who cares, right?"

"Your acting skills are improving every day," L says admiringly. "You sound genuinely upset. I shall be back in a little while, anyway."

He leaves the computer open on the ground, and leaves.

He's almost ninety percent sure Rae won't follow him.

* * *

Twenty-five minutes pass, with no calls, no further fires, and no Rae.

Point for L.

M calls to confirm that the lighter and firestarter fluid match Arcy's other crimes. As expected, then. L glances occasionally at the map of Scotland on his screen. Definitely not a crucifix this time. Something new. A parallelogram with a tail extending from one corner. Meaning what? Tadpole? Open box? Diamond on a string?

R is running the dots through an identity program, looking for matches on local geographic locations, buildings, and common items of furniture.

"We still don't know conclusively if the cross was meant to refer to the method of death, or the place of death," L says, deep in thought. "I'd assume the location. We already know the method of death is probably going to be fire. Why would we care about the specific piece of furniture involved?"

"But, there was an element of irony to Ricketts' death," R counters. "The arson incidents could still be advertising Arcy's whole 'fuck you and fuck what you believe in' attitude."

"You've been spending too much time around M," L tells him with a tiny smile. Bad language is contagious.

"Oh, yeah. Don't tell my wife, whatever you do," he replies, sheepishly.

L turns back to the screen. The churches are completely empty; the footage is of statues staring eerily into space. No movement. Nothing unusual.

"It's not Abigail. He's _after_ Abigail, L."

L blinks. The Shinigami has appeared beside him suddenly, and is apparently unsettled.

"Go on," L mouths, as his mental permanent marker adds another tally next to his name.

Rae jabs its finger at his map.

"Look, my mistake was connecting Alford and Westhill. But if you draw a primary line from Farmtown to Inverurie, through Keith and Huntley, and then join the other two onto that with separate lines, you get."

"A beast," L says, out loud.

A constellation-like representation of a four-legged animal. There's no mistaking it.

"A what?" R asks.

"Abigail's the animal lover. It must be her. Welfare is her passion, almost her religion. They're going to burn her with her animals, L."

L feels the adrenaline rush through him, his focus sharpening.

"Her menagerie," he says quickly.

It might not be. Rae jumps to conclusions. Well, maybe Rae jumps to conclusions. Rae wants _him_ to jump to conclusions, but that might not be the same thing.

"What? What have you worked out now?" R demands.

"Abigail's next," L tells him. "We need to get back to the university. Contact the others and send them down there."

He hits the intercom button.

"T. Watari. We need a car, and we need to go right now."

"Sweetheart, L thinks they're gonna go after Abigail," R says briskly into his phone. "And apparently soon."

"How…how did you know that?" N asks, her voice static-y over the speakerphone.

_Oh_, L thinks, and the energy drains away from him as quickly as it arrived.

"Too late," the Shinigami says, baffled. "Why is he moving so much faster than last time? I don't understand it."

"We got the call not thirty seconds ago," N says. "Muffled voice called a police station. Fire in Abigail's menagerie. The police have already got someone down there. They haven't identified the body, but…"

"Oh my god," says T from the door. "They got her, didn't they? We were only talking to her a few days ago."

"Thank you, N," L tells her. "We'll go to the scene anyway. Please meet us there."

Hit hits the intercom for Watari a second time.

"So she was innocent," T says, sadly. "How awful. And now, we don't even have any leads."

* * *

Abigail's death is almost identical to Ricketts', right down to the number on her chest.

"Two again?" M wonders. "Why?"

"Was it really necessary to burn all these animals?" N asks. She's cradling a blackened parrot in her hand, tears in her eyes.

Rae is naturally unmoved by the morbid scenery.

"So hung up on irrelevant details," it says irritably. "Nothing here is of any use to your investigation. Take your pictures, go home, and focus on the important things."

L stares at it.

"Let's face it, whoever did this is probably watching you right now," Rae says.

"The perimeter is clear, isn't it, R?" L asks. "There's no one around? No bugs?"

"Right," R tells him. "The police thought Arcy might want to revel in his handiwork, but there's no one around."

"Well, at least you've got some sense," Rae says. "But you've worked it out, haven't you, great detective? You know what Arcy wants."

L has his suspicions.

"Again, he contacted not the closest station to the scene of the crime, but the one closest to your hotel. Or, in this case, the station closest to the hotel two streets down, the place where the police records show you're staying. Just like last time."

L raises his eyebrows, impressed. If Rae were a human, and not a complete sociopath, he'd sign it up in a heartbeat.

"Correct," he says softly. "Absolutely correct."

"So essentially, they're getting exactly what they want," Rae concludes. "The attention of the best. Number one."

_L._

"I know," L whispers. "I know."

* * *

_And the most recent development in the case of Arcy, the genius-killer, is this. World's greatest detective L has announced he is retiring from the case as he fears for his own personal safety, and indeed, has already left for France. The police are understandably concerned by this turn of events, but vow to bring this murderer to justice._

L nods at the television approvingly.

"Excellent. Exactly to script."

"If Arcy has access to police information, won't they know you're still in London?" T asks.

"Only a very small group of officers know about the rigged broadcast," R explains to him. "If Arcy doesn't stop, we'll know one of them must have leaked the information. Either way, it narrows down the field."

"Oh," T says, and then. "Do you know what this reminds me of?"

"The Kira case?" M asks boredly.

"How did you guess?"

"You say that about every other case," M says, flicking the ash from the end of his cigarette. "You're obsessed with it."

M's actually more obsessed with it than T is, but quietly. Discreetly. Only L has some idea of the horrible, painful death he would bring on everyone who was ever connected to Kira. He'd tear them all apart in an instant if he could. No remorse. As if that would somehow undo the damage, rebirth the dead, burn the memories, dissolve hell itself, and make Mello appear at his side once more.

"Did I ever tell you _I'm_ the one who shot Kira?"

"Only twice. I started hitting you after that."

"Oh, that's right. I think I still have one of the bruises, actually!"

"Would you like another?"

"Umm. No."

"It bothers me that you had to think about that," R comments.

"It bothers _me_ that we have no idea who Arcy is," N adds. "But please, don't let me interrupt your conversation with unimportant matters."

R winces.

"Sorry, baby."

"It's just, there aren't any real leads," she says, sounding a little defeated. "There's an international database of police information in the UK. It's feasible that anyone could have tapped it, and found our location."

"But this person would have to have been in London and then in Aberdeen successively," L says. "Are there any police officers with those exact movements?"

N winces.

"Surprisingly, lots. Twenty-one. A cadetship rotation moved from one to the other at exactly that time. They were broken into smaller groups amongst individual stations, but we'd be stupid to presume that Arcy himself went to the stations closest to our hotels. He's already proved he's no fool."

"But he has proved he wants to be noticed," L reminds her.

"Noticed by a genius, L, if your theory is correct," R says worriedly. "If this really is about you, then Arcy's certainly done a good job of giving you the run-around. He'll leave cryptic clues. He's not going to spell it out for you."

"Another question is this," L says, sticking two fingers inside his bottom lip and staring at the roof. "What does Arcy want from me? Am I going to be the final death? The last number two? Arcy proving he's better than even me?"

"I'll try not to cheer for him too loudly," Rae says, but it sounds distracted. It's been hovering over N's computer, apparently interested in the profiles of the twenty-one cadets.

"Arcy isn't better than you," R says fiercely. "You'd better remember that. We're all counting on you to outsmart him, L."

"Yes, of course," L says, tritely. "I was merely being hypothetical. I already told you, I'm not in any danger right now."

"England, Scotland. Who's next, Ireland or Wales?" T wonders, the most relevant words out of his mouth all day. "And is he working his way around the world, or just the United Kingdom?"

"Although it's impossible to say for certain at this stage, I'd say Arcy's probably planned to stop killing soon," L informs them, calmly.

T turns to stare at him, wide-eyed.

"How do you know?"

"Because we're going to catch him soon," L says. "And I'm fairly certain that's how he plans to meet me, whatever he intends to do after that."

"Hang on! A moment ago you said you weren't in any danger. Now you're saying that Arcy intends to get to you when you catch him," R snaps.

L stares at him evenly.

"I think you need to be less emotionally invested in my safety," he says, calmly. "Accept that I'm careful, and move on."

R looks like he wants to say more, but N elbows him in the side.

He knows what they're thinking. They're doubtful. He's fallible.

Well, that's okay. He might not be a legend. He might not be anyone's hero. That doesn't matter. He's a good fucking detective, the best there is, and nothing else matters. He'll solve cases and lock criminals away and win, and win, and win.

And when he dies, well, then he'll have lost twice. He can't be a flimsy sleuth because he's frightened of death; that would be pointless.

The intercom buzzes.

"What is it, Watari?" M asks, beating him to it.

"Jimi's on the line, L."

"Put her through," L tells him, motioning for R to take up his position at the communication computer.

Jimi Davitt is a rocket scientist and physicist. Twenty-eight, but looks a lot younger. She's widely considered to be the most intelligent person in Ireland. L offered both Jimi and Mark Cunnick – a genius Welsh surgeon – rooms in local, specially-reinforced hotels. Places where they'd be protected from Arcy with round-the-clock monitoring. So far, only Cunnick has taken them up on the offer.

"Chief Detective Meibush?" she asks, and her voice trembles a little. Her parents were both Korean, and she looks tiny and fragile, even magnified on the big screen.

"I'm here," R says, flashing his fake ID at the screen. "Have you given any thought to my offer?"

She fidgets with her clothes. She's nervous, not like the others. L gets the impression she doesn't have to deal with people very often.

"You…you say this Arcy might try to murder me?" she asks, voice accented and soft, trembling.

"We believe you may be at risk," R clarifies, gently. "Only those of the highest intellect have been targeted."

"I'm….I'm flattered, really," she says. She keeps looking down, away from the screen. "But I don't even know if I'm on the same level as Ricketts and McWhirter."

"We believe you are," R tells her. "Arcy is a dangerous criminal. It would be best for you to relocate until he is caught."

She looks at the screen then, sharply.

"If I move, will it help you catch him?"

R blinks.

"What?"

"Will you use my empty house to trap him? Will he follow my movement so you can draw him out, Detective?"

"I….no. The point is your own safety. Our investigation is a separate matter."

She shakes her head slowly, her hair falling into her eyes.

"Then…I decline."

R leans forward.

"What? Miss Davitt, I urge you to reconsider, you-"

"No!" she says, and her voice is unexpectedly harsh. "No. I won't run away. If Arcy's coming, then he's coming, but I won't be a coward and run."

R grits his teeth.

"But Miss-"

"If my lord god has sent a murderer to test my faith, then I accept that test," she tells him, her eyes shiny with tears. "I am not frightened."

"I see," R says, defeated. "Please don't hesitate to contact us if you are ever concerned. I'll keep you updated on any developments that might put you at increased risk."

"Thank you," she says, and Watari terminates the connection.

L rubs his chin.

_Ah, yes. Rocket scientist, genius, and devout Catholic. Won't work on Sundays, abhors the theory of evolution, and donates fifty percent of her earnings to the church._

L had wondered whether she'd accept their help. Now he knows.

"Dammit," R says darkly. "What if it's her? What if Arcy's targeting Ireland next?"

"We can only wait and see," N says, touching the back of his head. "And investigate these cadets; try to find out if any of them might be connected to Arcy. We'll get there."

"Yes, that's right," L muses. "We have other things to focus on."

There's no saving people who won't even save themselves.

* * *

Approximately five minutes later, Rae rushes over to him, crowing.

"So, have you discovered Arcy's identity yet, L? Because _I _have."

"Mmm?" L says, noncommittal. He's been trying to remain carefully neutral when dealing with the Shinigami. He doesn't want to influence its decisions too much, one way or another.

It flicks a bony thumb towards N's computer.

"See for yourself."

L gets up and moves over to stand behind N, more to advance the conversation than anything else. He can't talk back, of course, not with everyone else still in the room.

"There's not a lot to go on," N tells him, clearly frustrated. "I've been able to rule out one cadet who's been in hospital for the past week, but that's it."

L scans the list of names and photos. He's already seventy-four percent certain he knows what he'll see.

There.

_Ellen Patricks_.

Thirty-two, from Belfast, curly hair. A mole on the left corner of her upper lip. Four foot eleven.

"Ellen," he mutters. The girl Wedy had mentioned had been called Ellen. And of course, she'd have the Irish accent that M extrapolated from the first phone call. Hardly enough for an arrest, however.

"Huh?" N asks, surprised. "Is it her?"

"Absolutely," Rae says, as if it's forgotten she can't hear it. "It must be. She matches Wedy's physical description as well as having the northern accent."

_Always jumping to conclusions_, L says. For a second, he entertains the idea that maybe some of the things Rae says are actually truthful. It sounds excited, like it actually thinks this is important.

_Hm._

"I'm not sure," he tells both of them.

"Ellen?" T asks. "Wait, isn't that the girl Wedy warned us about?"

"Wedy?" R asks sharply. "The thief? What?"

L knows R despises the fact that they occasionally have to liaise with known criminals.

"Never mind about that now," L says. "R, would it be possible for someone with access to police records to link Wedy to us?"

"Well - "

"They wouldn't need access," M interrupts. "It was made common knowledge that Wedy was working on the Kira case after she died. Anyone who's more recently dead would have known. The only difficult part would be recognising her."

"Of course," L says.

"What did she tell Ellen?" R demanded.

L turns to stare at him, expression stony.

"She told Ellen nothing," he says, darkly. "As would anyone else I've chosen to personally associate with. If you have any queries about my judgement, please bring them up at a more appropriate time, Raye."

R's mouth snaps shut, and L tries not to dwell on the fact that he only calls any of them by their first names when he's angry with them.

Not that he should ever be angry with them. He's not supposed to feel anything. He's supposed to be invincible.

"In any case," Rae muses, "you're probably going to need Wedy. It would much safer to send _her_ out to the East Galway station than any of your team, because Ellen already knows what she looks like, and can't use her to get to you."

_Exactly what I was thinking_.

_What are you planning, Shinigami?_

"Matsuda, bring me your jacket. The one you were wearing when we went to see McWhirter. I know you haven't washed it yet."

T blinks at him.

"Oh…er…right."

T comes back a moment later with said item of clothing dangling over his arm.

"Er, why do you need this? You're not going to destroy it, are you? It's my favourite."

"You sound like -" M says, and then snaps his mouth shut angrily. L wishes he wouldn't slip up so often.

"Of course not," he tells T. "Until we know how well Arcy can hack computers, we should presume he or she may also be able to hack phone lines, and therefore contacting Wedy through established channels is also risky."

"Is my jacket going to help with this?" T asks, doubtfully.

"Yes," L says calmly, fishing into the left pocket and pulling out a cell phone. It's tiny and mauve, the sort that snaps shut. He opens it and quickly scans through the main menu. There's only one number programmed in, nothing else has been altered from the factory settings.

"Uh," T says. "I've never seen that before in my life."

L presses the dial button and waits.

"I have no idea what's going on," R admits, still sounding irritated.

"Hallo?"

"Wedy."

L puts her on speaker and throws the phone onto the couch.

"It's you," she says. She sounds disappointed.

"I need you to tail Ellen for me," he says, without preamble. "Her last name is Patricks. She's with the police cadets."

"They're boarding at the Maxwell hotel on Kent St, Glasgow," N adds.

"What do you want?"

"Taps. Audio and visual. In her room, in her workplace, in her car, on her if you can manage it. If you agree, I'll send Watari out with the necessary equipment."

"With a girl like that, this may even be challenging. I like it," she tells him. "How much?"

"We _pay_ her?" R sputters.

"Would you prefer we did each other favours, instead?" L asks. "It's better to keep things professional."

"She's a _thief_."

"I was a thief when I was alive, too," Wedy sasses. "That didn't land me in hell. Therefore, I deduce that what I'm doing is moral, if not legal."

"I deduce you're really _fucking_ lucky," M snaps, voice dripping with disgust. "And I wouldn't push it."

"The usual rate," L says. "Five for twenty-four hours."

"Done," Wedy says. "If you give the phone back."

L sighs.

"Of course. But if you start making trouble within my team, I'll be forced to cut you off. You are aware of that, yes? What you're trying to do right now is fairly inappropriate."

"Send Watari," she says sweetly. "Take care, honey."

_Click._

"Okay," L surmises quietly. "We have surveillance. Davitt is a no-go. How is Cunnings?"

"Uh, L?"

"Fine," M says. "The cameras show everything, no blind spots. He's sitting reading a newspaper right now. Fascinating stuff."

"L?"

L touches his chin.

"I think we need to bide our time on this one," he says. "It's Arcy's turn to make a move."

"What? But he's out-manipulated you at every turn," Rae says, waving its long arms around. "Now you're just going to sit back and _let_ him do whatever he wants?"

"We don't necessarily _want_ to stop Arcy from getting what he wants."

"Or she," N interjects.

"L, uhhh. L?"

"Quite. Arcy wants to meet us. Or, more accurately, me. Which is a perfect opportunity to arrest him or her."

"But how many people are going to _die_ between now and then?" Rae asks. "You know her name, now. And you've got a face. That's all you need. It would be easy. You could save Davitt. You could save everyone."

"…L?"

"And what if Arcy murders you, too? How utterly ridiculous would that be?"

_Yes, _L thinks. _You'd be disappointed if I died, wouldn't you. You would never get the chance to prove you could break me._

_Of course, you'll never get that chance anyway._

"L!"

"_What_, Matsuda?"

T touches the back of his head and smiles nervously.

"Um, what just happened? Why did I have that phone in my pocket to start with?" he says in a rush.

"Because she put it there when you were banging your head on the table in the café," L says. "I saw her do it."

T stares at him with a dumbfounded sort of expression, then snaps his fingers.

"Oh right, I get it. So she knew, even before we did, that this Ellen girl was dangerous and that we might need a safe way to contact her. Wow! She's so _smart_."

And then he sighs.

"Not that it matter, right? Because I'm just a loser."

"Yup," M deadpans.

R shoots L a significant look.

"She gave him a _phone_," he asks quietly.

"It's okay," L replies, equally softly. A stronger connection with someone like Wedy wouldn't hurt his team. "And besides, he hasn't even noticed yet."

"What are you two whispering about?" T asks curiously.

"Nothing," R tells him. "Listen to me, Matsuda. You need to be sensible about things, okay? Every decision you make. You need to always think of the good of the L squad."

Sometimes L hates that name.

"Of course," T says brightly. "Can I have my jacket back, now?"

"You can have the phone, too," L says, grudgingly. "Let me know if Wedy leaves any messages for me."

"Really? I'm the point of contact? Awesome! I'll be sensible! I'll definitely be sensible!"

"This is all so pathetic," the Shinigami says nastily.

And for once, L has to agree with it.

* * *

They get news of the next fire that evening, just after six. A field east of Galway.

"Ireland," R says bitterly. "And close to where Davitt lives."

"And close to the police station where Ellen Patricks is," N adds.

"So Davitt's next," M comments.

"You don't have to sound so blasé about it!" R says brusquely.

"Hey, she made her decision. Not our fault."

"We ought to still try and protect her if we can," L says. "But obviously, we only have so many resources."

The intercom crackles.

"L."

"Watari. What is it?"

"Reports are that the blaze was much more controlled than previous fires, to the extent that the arsonist had smeared the surrounding ground with water-based gel so that the fire wouldn't spread beyond a certain point."

"Why?"

"I think it's fairly obvious when you see the shape of the scorch marks," Watari says. "I'm sending footage right now. It's very intricate, and would have taken hours to set up."

"And no trace of Arcy?"

"None."

As expected, then. The video file arrives promptly, and L opens it.

"Oh my," Rae says.

"Oh my god," N says.

L takes a sweet from the dish beside him and shoves it into his mouth.

The handiwork isn't perfect, but then no human could possibly burn nine three-foot-high letters onto a field of native grass without some minor flaws and mistakes. It's legible, though. It's definitely legible, even before the last of the fire is extinguished. The ominous message spelled out in scorch marks across the ground.

_L, look down._

L drops his gaze immediately.

Bare feet.

Chair legs.

Carpet.

Nothing unusual at all.

"Well, I feel stupid now," T comments. "There's nothing down here."

"Maybe it's not up here," M mutters. He pulls the collar of his coat up over his mouth and rushes over to the nearest window, shoving it open.

"Nothing on this side," he reports.

"T, R, N, check the other sides of the building," L commands. "Keep your faces covered, all of you. Look outside before you open windows."

The chances of Arcy actually having located him are only seven percent. But it isn't like Arcy to send a cryptic message that doesn't lead anywhere.

"This is different," he says softly. "This isn't his usual pattern. Rae?"

"Yes?"

"Will you go outside and take a look around for me?"

"Hmm. Will you write a name in the death note for me?"

"You already know the answer to that," L says boredly.

"Then you know my answer. Do your own damn job, detective."

"I see. You always disappoint me when you're predictable, Rae."

Arcy, on the other hand, he'd prefer to be a little _more_ predictable.

_Look at me, look at me_.

"There's nothing at ground level," N reports back to him. "We've checked all sides of the building. There haven't been any more news reports?"

"Not yet," L says.

"Look down," R mutters. "Why 'look down'? And why send a message like this?"

"Doesn't this mean one of the officers involved in the bogus broadcast must be corrupt?" N asks. "Arcy must know you're still here if she's done something like this."

"Not necessarily," L tells her. "A message like this ought to make international news. In fact, Arcy will be suspicious if it doesn't. Please inform the local newsgroups that they are at liberty to publish it in any way they see fit."

"Reaching out to you while you're in France?"

"I believe so. It's possible things have changed because Arcy wants me to return. He or she has abandoned the subtlety of their earlier clues to leave something like this, trying to draw me back in."

He stretches his arms over his head.

"N, I want you to contact every local station except East Galway. Tell them to keep a close eye on Davitt."

L folds himself into his favourite chair and rests his hands on his knees.

"It's still their move, I'm afraid," he tells his team. "There's nothing to be seen yet."

_Look down._

_

* * *

_

L stays in his chair for the rest of the night, and well into the morning, monitoring screens showing about twenty different news channels, local and international.

If Arcy thinks he's in France, chances are whatever it is will happen there. But if that's true, then Arcy must think he knows where L is _in _France, which doesn't make any sense, because he never set up any sort of decoy there.

That's presuming a very simple meaning for the phrase 'look down', however.

Everything else Arcy has done has been a reference to the map. If you extrapolate that, then Arcy could be referring to anywhere below France. Marseille, maybe, or Spain, Algeria, Mali, Nigeria. A whole host of countries.

"So, you've decided he's going to make his move south of France?" Rae asks, appearing beside him.

"Maybe. The thing is, if that's true, then Arcy is one hundred percent certain we're in France. And yet, I doubt he's stupid enough to just believe the news broadcast. But there's also no reason to believe Arcy knows we're still here, or where exactly in the United Kingdom we are. So why so confident in 'look down'?"

Rae leans its bony elbows on his desk.

"Well, of course, there isn't, unless you're referring to colloquialisms," the Shinigami rasps smugly. "But there is always one place that's reliably referred to as 'down', for which Arcy wouldn't need to be certain about your present location."

L stares. Of course. He's been so busy stepping back to see what Rae would do, he's missed it.

"Australia."

"Yeah, Australia. You know, the place where they just had half a city set on fire ten minutes ago? Not that I'd expect you to know that. You're only a detective, after all."

"L! L! There's been a massive fire in the Northern Territory of Australia!" T yells, bursting through the doors."

"I know."

"They evacuated all the buildings first – someone went around and hit all the fire alarms and then torched the place!"

"I know."

"Actually, they used a firebomb," M says in a comparatively normal voice, wandering in behind T. "It's really not Arcy's usual style, and it's a long way away."

"It's Arcy," L says. "T, please contact Wedy."

"Uh…me?"

"Just a moment ago you were raving about the latest fire. Please don't act as if you no longer think it's important."

"Right."

L looks at M, even though he hates looking at protégé number three. M's wearing eyeliner, presumably to cover up his own excessive bags, and his hair is past his chin now. His shirt has slipped, and L can see ink - the top of the capital letter 'K' - just under his collarbone.

"The name of the affected city is Darwin," he says carefully. "That means Arcy has selected Davitt as his next victim."

"You want us to try and get to Davitt first?" he asks, voice still deadpan, like he doesn't really care. He doesn't question L's reasoning, and L's pretty certain he's worked it out for himself.

_The father of evolution condemns the creationist. _That definitely sounds like Arcy's kind of reasoning.

"I am eighty-two percent certain we will already be too late," L says. "But please, try and contact her."

He doubts Arcy will have gone to Australia in person. He or she has probably hired a few criminals to make sure the job got done. Hence the change in technique.

"Hey, gorgeous," Wedy's voice crackles over the speakerphone.

T stares at L with wide eyes.

"I think she's talking to you."

_I doubt it_.

"What have you got for me, Wedy?" L asks.

"So far, I haven't been able to locate Patricks."

"What?" T asks. "But you should have made it to the police station yesterday!"

"Why the hold up?" M asks. "Don't tell me you couldn't break into the place."

"You insult me, kid," she says loftily. "I got in easily. She's not here. Called in sick for the Galway rotation because her mother's had a stroke, and is in hospital. Only thing is, her mother definitely isn't in the hospital they had on file, or any of the others in that area. In fact, her mother seems to be alive and healthy in her home in Belfast. Ellen split off from the group when they left Aberdeen, so I've been trying to track down which way she went."

"Shit," M says conversationally.

"It's her?" Wedy asks.

"I'm cancelling your services," L informs her. "We've got things to do."

He hangs up the phone and tosses it at Matsuda.

"Davitt's not picking up," M says, unnecessarily. "I've tried her home, her mobile, and all of her work lines. But she's not always contactable."

"That's fine. Keep trying until I tell you to stop."

"Okey-dokey."

"T, get me the others," L says. "And then ask Watari to transfer every single communication system we have to this laptop."

"We're going somewhere?"

L opens up a new web page. There's only one sort of place that Arcy would choose for Davitt. All he needs is the location.

"Yes, most of us. All but one of us is going to Galway. A museum. I'll tell you which one in a moment. Arcy will probably try and make contact soon. The only interesting thing will be to see which police station she chooses."

She won't wait until after the murder this time. She sent a note, she wants their attention. She'll send another before its all over.

"Right," T says, and rushes off.

L rubs the back of his head. He'll be relieved to finally bring this to a close.

* * *

Raye Penber isn't happy. He's often not happy - working with L is difficult at the best of times, and heart-wrenching at the worst – but he hates this most of all, this rushing and not knowing whether he'll arrive in time to save the victim, or just report the murder.

Sometimes, he really doesn't like L.

"Can you read me the email again, M?" he asks. It's clear that Arcy – Ellen – didn't know where they were. She sent a mass email to all the police stations in London, Aberdeenshire, Galway, and Paris, and a handful of others as well.

_That means she won't know what time to expect you, _L had said, when they'd first received it. _She won't be running to a schedule, she'll be prompted by your arrival._

Of course. They could have worked that one out for themselves.

"Sure. 'L, did you spot my handiwork down under? We'll be waiting for you, with the wizard and his heathen taxidermy. Better rush if you like your meat rare.'"

"It still disgusts me," N says, shaking. "This woman is disgusting. How could you _do_ this to someone?"

She's still so beautiful, even ruffled and sleep-deprived, and disgusted. The shining thing in his world. He takes his hand off the gear stick and places it over hers. The flight was relatively fast, but they're all still a little exhausted.

"It'll be all right, baby."

The museum near Merlin Park. She's waiting for them there. R worked it out from the email, he even managed to get in and say it before L could explain it to them.

Sometimes, he's childish and petty. He figures he's allowed to be. L is childish all the time, after all.

"Does anyone understand why he's not coming along for this mission?" T asks from the back seat.

Speaking of childish.

"Because that's what she wants," R tells him. "We're not going to give her the real L."

"Oh."

T stares out the window for a few minutes, then says.

"How come I never get to be L?"

"Because you're a retard," M says succinctly.

And although N yells at him, R's pretty sure he couldn't have put it any better himself.

* * *

Davitt's different to the others. She doesn't whine or scream or cry. She doesn't even struggle. She just sits there, wide-eyed and wordless. She keeps shooting Ellen these frightened looks, like she's important. Like this whole thing is because she's an oh-so-special genius.

Except she's _not_. There's only one genius in this game – in this _world_ – and he's coming to see her right now. She's so excited, she can hardly keep her hands still as she splashes the igniter fluid around the room.

It's all she's wanted, all her life. Ever since she was seventeen and kidnapped, back in the first world, and then they'd saved her and they'd told her it was him.

And now she is here. And he is here. And it's all so very perfect.

Drip, drip, drip. The fluid coats the ancient bones of a dinosaur fossil, and makes patterns across the floor.

They don't understand her. They don't understand what its like to want to see someone so badly when they _always hide_. He should have just answered her letters, the ones she's been sending to police all her life.

_I bet they never even forwarded them_, she thinks viciously, and she turns around and throws the oil right in Davitt's face.

"How do you like that, clever girl?" she asks softly. "Are you going to reason your way out of this one? Maybe you can build a rocket with your hands tied behind your back?"

Davitt starts to cry, big fat tears rolling off her cheeks. Pathetic and still impossibly silent.

Ellen's wearing a balaclava, but it's mostly for show. When he comes, she'll show him her face. She'll do anything for him. He must realise how clever and devoted she is by now. All these people, all these _imposters_ calling themselves the best.

How dare they.

"Look," she says, smiling sweetly. "There's the chart about the mososaurus, the ancestor of modern snakes and lizards. It's a funny thing, isn't it? Evolution. The weak perish. Oh, but where's the god that loves you, now?"

There's the faint _hush_ of a car pulling up outside the building. Ellen presses her finger to her lips and smiles. So he _was_ still in the United Kingdom, after all. Probably not local, though. She wonders if he ever left England. It doesn't matter now.

_He's here.  
_

There's no proof L's not a woman, of course. But she isn't choosey, not when it comes to her hero. She'll be happy with him either way.

Now she can hear footsteps. At least…three of them. No, four. One of them is wearing high heels. She sighs.

So he's brought others. Unsurprising, but still disappointing. She would have liked it to be just the two of them.

Can't be helped now. Davitt will give her some bargaining power with anyone else that arrives. L, of course, will be furious at Davitt for claiming to be the best. He must be so happy she's getting rid of the wannabes.

_Knock, knock, knock_.

She holds her breath.

_It's you! After so long__. _

"Come in," she calls, and her voice shakes a little. She yanks off her balaclava, her curly hair falling around her face.

_My L_.

The giant wooden doors open, almost in slow motion. The _click_ of heels on the polished floor is overpoweringly loud, like gunshot, but the sound stops suddenly. They're still in the atrium area. They have to step through the next doorway to see her.

She can barely hear anything else over the sound of her own heart, roaring inside her head. She see's his shadow before she sees the rest of him. He's taller than she expected. But she's glad. It would be so disappointing if he'd turned out the way she imagined. She wants him to be totally different, something else, beyond what even she could possibly dream of.

The man that comes in is younger than her, near-tranlucent skin, dead eyes. He's got floppy hair, a strange brown that's almost green, and he's wearing a trenchcoat and boots. He's got bags under his eyes the size of potatoes, and he has the sort of expression that indicates he's tired of the world and everything in it.

"I am L," he says. His voice is nasal and unconcerned.

"Oh," she says, still unable to breathe. "Oh. You are _perfect_."

He folds his arms across his chest. They're so skinny she can see the tendons play and pull when he moves.

_Oh, you work so hard, I bet you don't have time to eat or exercise. Not with that magnificent brain_.

"What are you doing?" he asks. She tries to catalogue every nuance of his voice, remember it for later. How many people in the world have seen his face? Ten? Two? None? And yet here she is, with him. She's met L. Actually _met_ him.

Davitt chooses that moment to start wriggling and whining, straining uselessly against her binds.

"Shut up!" Ellen snaps. "He's not here for _you_."

L says nothing, which she takes as an affirmation.

"I knew you'd find me," she tells him excitedly. "I knew it would be the third person. I started out wide, made it so it could have almost been an accident. I knew you'd be intrigued. Tell, me, when did you figure out it was me?"

He stares right through her.

"You're a serial killer," he says flatly.

"I'm _yours_," she corrects. "I'm the only one who understands you. I'm your number one fan!"

"You're a crazy serial killer, then," he amends.

She tilts her head to the left.

_Is this some sort of test? Some sort of game?_

_He can't honestly think I'm just a crazy serial killer. No. He's brilliant, he must understand how much I love him. How good I'll be for him. What we can do, together._

She smiles wider and splashes Davitt again.

"I knew you'd found me when I saw that blonde woman again. You know, you really should keep better company. She's smart, but she's nothing compared to you."

But she hadn't claimed to be better than him, so she'd been allowed to live. Let it never be said that Ellen Patricks isn't fair.

"She's a part of my team," he says, his voice picking up some harsh tones. "And therefore entitled to my protection."

"You're noble, too. I like that. I've been noble, see? I've been defending your honour."

He snorts, like he's laughing at her.

_He's pretending. He's gotta be pretending._

"By murdering innocent people who had nothing to do with me?"

"It was what I _had_ to do," she explains earnestly. "Just to be _near_ you. You never would have noticed me, otherwise. You'd have missed out, too. You'd never have known how helpful I could be."

"If you'd stuck to your job and become a good police officer, I would have noticed you," he counters. "I notice everyone, sooner or later."

Of course he does. Of course. But he's countering all of her moves. He's testing her, he must be. Time to raise the level of this game, then.

"So all of these fires, all of these deaths, they were just a tool to meet me?" he asks.

"Yes!"

Thank goodness, he's starting to understand.

"So you don't intend to kill me?"

The colour drains from her face.

_How could my L be so mistaken?_

"No! Never. I want to work with you. I want to help you help other people. I want to be your right-hand woman."

He touches his hair, unconsciously.

"Well, maybe we can talk about that," he says, after a moment.

Relief washes through her. Of course. He would never have let her down.

"Yes, please," she says, trying not to appear too ridiculously happy. She wants his respect, after all.

"I have a car waiting," he says. "Come with me. We can discuss the terms of your employment."

"Of course."

She'll go anywhere with him.

"All I need you to do is give me that lighter," he continues. "The one in your pocket."

She hesitates, and her gaze is drawn back to the wriggling Davitt. Well, there's no way she can leave the scum still alive. L wouldn't want that, either. She grabs the lighter, and holds it out in front of her, thumb on the button.

"One moment," she says, grinning.

"No!" he says, voice suddenly sharp and ugly. "Don't you dare press that! Drop the lighter. Step away from her."

"But baby," she says, confidently. "She tried to outdo you. She needs to die. Just one moment, and I'll be right with y-"

_Crack_.

Another man has appeared around the doorway, crouching, gun in his hand. For a second, she wonders if he's going to shoot Davitt for her. Efficient, but lacking in style.

And then the pain explodes through her chest, rips up her arms and down her legs. And she sees the blood. So much blood. Hers.

_I don't understand, my love. Is this a test too?_

And then everything fades to black.

* * *

"Well done, M," L says quietly.

"No problem," M replies. Typical. He's totally unconcerned by the fact that someone was just shot in the heart standing right in front of him. His own death meant nothing to him, obviously.

On the screen, he sees R rush to Davitt and rip off her gag and blindfold.

"Detective Meibush?" she asks, terrified and grateful at once. He pulls her into a hug as T struggles to cut through the rest of the bindings.

"You...I don't believe you just did that," Rae says, and it sounds genuinely shocked. "You just ordered Raye Penber - your own soldier - to _kill_ someone."

"Yes, that's correct," he says calmly. "It was necessary in order to protect Davitt. Patricks had every opportunity to come quietly."

"So it's okay?"

"What's okay?"

"That you killed her? It's okay, because she was a criminal about to commit a crime that would have hurt someone else?"

L knows exactly where the conversation is going, but it isn't like he has better things to do right now.

"Yes. We acted in the same way any police squadron would have acted. Patricks' behaviour would have landed her in this position no matter what we'd done."

Rae folds and unfolds its wings. The soft noise of metal rushing over metal sounds dangerous, like someone flicking open a switchblade repeatedly. It's clearly agitated. L smiles to himself.

Point for -

"So, shooting through the heart is an ethical death, but a heart attack isn't? Is that right? Is that honestly what it boils down to?"

"I wasn't absolutely certain she was guilty until M made contact with her," he explains. "Of course, it would have been desirable to take her into custody and give her a fair trial, but she choose not to cooperate. When she pulled out that lighter and stated her intention to use it, I had no better option."

"I see," Rae says, sounding suddenly both pleased and predatory. "So, by your own admission, you could have written Patricks' name in the death note in the same second you gave the kill command, and that would have been equally acceptable?"

"No, that would have been highly suspicious," L says, beginning to stack sugar cubes into his tea mug. "If criminals started dropping dead as soon as I was convinced of their guilt, I imagine the others would have me locked up for being the third Kira in under a month."

"But you could do it once," the Shinigami says brightly. "Say, when its really important that they die immediately. When lots of lives are at stake. When you can't just trust Penber's good aim."

"Of course I _could_," L replies, a little crossly. "I could use it at any second, as I'm _constantly _reminded. But the death note is a moral sink, and I will not be corrupted."

"You're not making sense," Rae spits. "You're full of excuses, but when it comes down to it, you've got no good reason. You're just a _coward_, Lawliet."

L shakes his head.

"I just told you-"

"All this talk of morality and not being corrupted, and you're _already_ corrupted. You're deliberately avoiding the best, and safest way to bring justice to the people who trust _you_ because you're weak."

L spins slowly in his chair until he's face-to-face with the Shinigami.

"I'm weak?" he asks, curiously.

"You won't use the death note because you're worried you won't be able to handle that much power," it says knowingly. "You think that as soon as you put a pen to that paper you're going to go crazy and power-hungry and destroy everything. You _know_ you're weak."

L blinks.

"I am not," he says, calmly, but it's bothering him. He isn't weak. He's right. He _knows_ he's right.

Damn Shinigami.

"You are!" it roars, accusingly. "The L of legends, the one everyone believes in, the hero of the developed world, is a lie. You're a loser, you're pathetic, and you're empty inside! McWhirter didn't need to die. There are thousands of people who've suffered unspeakable things over the past five months that _you_ could have saved, if only you'd been even the tiniest bit _strong!_"

L sits absolutely still, the words washing over him, over and over. The Shinigami stands rooted to the spot, panting. Or whatever the approximation of panting is for something that has fire instead of lungs.

A minute ticks by, slowly and painfully, before either of them speak.

"I see," l says softly. "I see. You are questioning my strength."

"I'm questioning _you_," the Shinigami spits, darkly.

L ambles over to the window, mentally organising what he wishes to say.

"First and foremost," he says thoughtfully. "My own cowardice. At my last calculation, I deduced I was twenty-four percent likely to be a coward. However, that was three weeks ago, so it's entirely possible that that figure is no longer completely precise."

Rae stares at him, expression unreadable, red eyes burning.

"I certainly value my own life," L says. "I know I am childish, and hate to lose. I suppose in certain circumstances, that would mean I was guaranteed to behave in a cowardly manner. Yes, you are correct. However."

And he turns around to face the god of death once more.

"However, I do not believe that my behaviour regarding the death note is one of cowardice."

"Yeah, right -"

"Let me say my piece," L says sharply. "I let you say yours, after all."

_An eye for an eye_.

"Fine," it rasps.

"My problem with the note is not - as you suspect - that it kills people."

Rae doesn't respond. It seems to be trying to stare right through him. Perhaps it can.

"It is how _easily_ it kills people," L clarifies. "Bringing death to another person should never be easy. Wars would never happen if the person ordering one platoon to slaughter another stood right there on the battlefield when they made that call. It should never be impersonal. I watched Patricks die. I heard her final scream. I saw her bleed. I watched the light fade from her eyes. And I knew, when all of this was happening, that I myself had caused it. I had to live with that fact. Still have to."

"That's a _lovely_ speech. How long have you been rehearsing it for?"

"_Listen_," L commands. "You'll have a whole four and a half years to mock me later, if you wish."

"I'll do anything I want, _whenever_ I want," Rae corrects him, pettily.

"Yes," L says. "I suppose that's true. Tell me something, Shinigami. As heir to the king, you must have travelled a lot, yes? You must have seen many humans, both alive and dead."

"Of course," Rae says, sounding suspicious.

"Do you ever remember their names?"

"They're rarely important."

"Of course," L agrees. "I imagine it would be. I suspect you already know the circumstances of my death, but I'll tell you, anway. I was killed by a man called Light Yagami. Have you ever seen anyone by that name?"

The Shinigami is silent for a moment, apparently thinking.

"It doesn't ring any bells?" it admits, but it sounds slightly...unnerved.

_So, even the Shinigami are frightened of Light_, he thinks, amused.

"He was given a death note by another Shinigami," L explains. "The first human to acquire one in hundreds of years, if I believe correctly. But that's irrelevant. My point is, he was destroyed by the power of the death note."

"Destroyed?" Rae asks. "I think I must have heard a story different to the one you're telling. I thought he used that power to control the world, at least for a little while."

L shakes his head.

"A human should never wield so much power," he corrects. "That is the worst way to kill someone, to give them power and watch them slowly destroy themselves. Making good people do terrible things is easy, because they are already so motivated. You only need to convince them that the terrible thing will have a good result."

He stares at the Shinigami, scrutinising.

"Your kind brings more trouble than you know, and not in the way you expect," he pronounces. "That man wanted to be a police officer, once. Aspired to do good, and to do it the right way. And then a god of death decided to involve him in a little social experiment, and he became a psychopath, torn apart, probably within a number of days."

"This _really_ isn't the story I heard," Rae interrupts. For a moment, the colour in its eyes seems to dull. A trick of the light, of the flames tearing up its chest. When L blinks, they're apple-red and awful again.

Sleep. He needs sleep.

"Of course it wasn't," he says, tiredly. "You were told the story by Ryuk, no? I imagine he thought the whole thing was very funny."

"More or less," Rae admits, grinning nastily.

"But you pretend to be interested in my own desires and values, so I am telling you," L says quietly. "There are not so many differences between myself and the man who became Kira. I will not use the death note - no matter what, not even in someone's dying moment - because death should always be difficult. To kill once should make you less likely to kill again. Do you understand?"

"No. I think you're crazy," Rae says, without missing a beat.

"There are worse things to be," L says, with a shrug.

Much, much worse things to be.

"So what? This is it? You're point-blank never going to use the death note no matter what?"

"You don't need to be a genius to work that out," L says. There's cake on the table. He thinks it might be strawberry, but he should definitely find out for certain.

"Fine," the Shinigami snaps. "Cowardly, weak, crazy, and _selfish_."

"And you can call me L," L says with a smile. "By the way, I ought to thank you for your help with this case. You were...valuable."

Rae stares at him, absolutely expressionless.

"Whatever," it says, after a pause.

_Yes, whatever, _L thinks. The cake is strawberry and apple, and delicious in every possible way. _Your move, Shinigami_.

* * *

tbc


	8. Mirth

notes/warnings

+ swearing

* * *

**Mirth**

"That woman was insane," N comments. She's sitting on the sofa, head thrown back, one hand resting on her forehead. She looks exhausted.

"It's over now," R says comfortably. He's got one arm around her, and she's got her free hand on his knee. They're all sitting in a haphazard circle in the second office. N and R are both drinking wine, and M is attempting to create a citywide smog all on his own. L is demolishing his eighth cherry pie of the day, and Rae is sitting in a corner, presumably sulking.

"Do you know who she reminded me of?" Matsuda asks quietly. He's playing some sort of infantile-looking card game on his computer.

"Yes," L says wearily. "I know."

T is utterly predictable in every way.

Most of the time.

"I kinda miss Misa-Misa," he continues, anyway. "She made everything fun."

"And was a mass-murder...a _probable_ mass murderer," L says, admonishing himself for his own slip-up.

"You sound pretty confident in that," T says, wide-eyed. "I thought you'd practically decided she was innocent."

"Decided, and practically decided are not the same thing," L informs him, a little haughtily.

He glances at Rae, but the god of death shows no signs of suspicion. In fact, it hasn't even moved.

The last thing he needs is it finding out he met with Rem. There's a thirteen percent chance she might be useful to him again, and he's fairly convinced she'll be banned from contacting him if any of the other Shinigami learn what she did. He touches his belt, and then presses a hand to his chest.

The note is safe. He must always keep the note safe.

He wonders what would happen if somebody else obtained it from him, somehow. Would Rae take it back and give it to him again? Or would the Shinigami's quest simply be transferred to them?

L gazes at the others. The conversation has progressed from Misa Amane, to famous pop stars, to cutlery, and then to some far-fetched tale that's currently making M flip Matsuda off. N is laughing at them, near-hysterics. Tension relief.

"You okay, L?" R asks. "You've zoned out."

"I am always okay," he replies, tucking one knee under his chin. "Merely thinking."

"Well, don't wear your brain out," R replies, cracking a smile. "Save that for the next case."

It's a silly thing to say, and he knows it. L's brain is inifinitely capable. Always

"And then," Matsuda...T says breathlessly, "the chief of police said 'what's that jellyfish doing in my desk drawer', and..."

He goes on and on and on, some stupid story L didn't hear the start of. And he looks at Matsuda, and Mail, and Naomi, and Raye, and he realises that he wouldn't trust _any_ of them with his death note, not even for a second.

He's all alone in this.

* * *

Time passes. They stay in London for a while. Matsuda drags them all to a large social event - some medieval-style fair that he claims to be 'the coolest thing ever', and that is only dubiously related to their current case - and generally behaves as if he's severely deficient in brain cells.

L wanders around by himself. Nothing like being out in a crowd of unknown people to hone one's perceptive skills, after all.

"That woman there," he breathes, and points only with the tip of his smallest finger. "She's one month pregnant."

Rae is floating along beside him. It glances at her briefly before going back to staring at the sky.

"She's at least six weeks," it scoffs.

"Correct," L says. "You're very observant, aren't you? Even with regard to things that would be completely useless in the Shinigami world."

"Our world is tied to your own," Rae says, sounding as if it's reading from a script. "Besides, humans are interesting."

L smiles indulgently.

"I imagine you only find them interesting because they are the challenge that stands in the way of you becoming king. I have met Shinigami that were interested in humans for their own sake, and they were nothing like you."

"You refer to Ryuk," Rae says knowingly. "He is a fool."

"Much like Matsuda?" L whispers.

"Perhaps. You know Ryuk has a malevolent side to him?"

"I'm sure you know all about malevolent Shinigami, Rae."

Rae looks at him.

"I thought we were comparing Ryuk to Matsuda."

"Please stop trying to hint that T is evil," L says. "I trust him implicitly."

"Yes," Rae says softly. "I know."

L stares at the Shinigami, trying desperately to read its expression, its body language, anything. It gives away so little, in such small outbursts. Impossible to outwit, because he doesn't know the rules that govern it.

"Just promist me that if he ever gives you reason to distrust him, you won't ignore it completely just because he shot your murderer," the death god adds.

L frowns.

"You know about that?"

"I know everything," Rae says. "Also, this is _boring_."

"You don't have to be here, you know."

"Yes, I know. As much as I enjoy making you appear to be schizophrenic, I think I'll...go for a fly."

"You do that," L says, unnecessarily, because the Shinigami is already gaining altitude. "I prefer to keep my feet on the ground."

* * *

Another case comes up. Serial killer in Hong Kong. Decapitates his victims. Seems to get in and out of people's homes without sign of forced entry.

"How does someone get an entire guillotine into a place without anyone noticing?" R asks. "That's insane."

"The cuts are so clean," N comments, examining the photographs of the victims.

"It's clearly not an axe or a sword," M agrees, flicking his own pocketknife. "We're talking about a really big blade here, that can be wielded with a lot of force."

"Hey, someone sent flowers to someone called 'T'," Matsuda calls from the front door. "There's no one here called T. I wonder if we can return them to the sender. They're really pretty, too."

But everyone mostly ignores him.

L spends eighteen days musing over the beheadings before he asks.

"Rae?"

"Yes?"

"Will you help me with this case?"

"No," the Shinigami says, with less vitriol than the last time L asked. "I'm hungry, actually."

"Want an apple?"

"No, I think I want, hm. Pizza."

There is silence for a moment. L snaps his fingers, mostly for effect.

"A pizza slicer," he says. "A huge, portable blade. That's how he's doing it. Of course."

The Shinigami stares at him from the doorway, horrible red eyes. But L thinks it seems to be just a little...pleased.

Maybe.

* * *

Two cases later, they're working on a rapist in Moscow. There are almost no similarities between the victims, but the perpetrators don't seem to be making any particular statement, either.

L agonises over it for exactly six days before Rae grabs him by the shoulders, clearly exasperated.

"For the love of god, you're clearly looking for at least ten different men working together. How difficult can it be to track a group that large?"

They find the men the next day, partly because N is awesome, but mostly because of Rae.

"Thank you," L says, although it feels strange on his tongue. He's watching by satellite link as local officers arrest the ringleader.

"Eh," Rae says, and busies itself with attempting to draw patterns into the condensation on the windows.

It can't.

* * *

Wedy drops by, unannounced and showy, to tell them that one of the world's greatest thieves has just passed away and has been spotted in Sweden.

"Known only as Maxie," she says, almost girlishly, clasping her hands over her heart. "She can switch alarms off without even accessing them. They say she's so flexible she once packed herself into a shoebox. Broke into Fort Knox. Three times. In one weekend. She was my idol, when I was growing up. Well, one of my idols. The other was the Shyster, but she was more a murderer than a thief"

"Yes," L says, noncommittally.

"The Shyster?" N asks. "L, wasn't that your very first case? The one that made you famous?"

"Yes," Wedy says, gravely. "L executed the Shyster."

"Please don't talk about that any more," L says firmly. "It's irrelevant."

If the others notice he's uncomfortable, they don't say anything.

"If you loved Maxie so much, why are you telling us about her?" R asks warily. He keeps snapping his hands open and shut, as if he's itching to slap some handcuffs on Wedy and arrest her right there in the hotel room.

"Hi!" T says, supremely unhelpful.

"Hey, gorgeous," Wedy says dismissively. "L, I tell you because that's the way this game is. Gotta keep things even. They say Maxie got a little too trigger-happy in her final years. I wouldn't be surprised if she, too, has gone all the way to murderer."

"If that were true, she should be in hell," M says darkly. Sometimes, L thinks hell is the only thing he can talk about.

"We already know the hell filter is both entirely unreliable and not particularly fair," L says, with finality. "I don't think we should ever presume that someone must have been a good person when they were alive just because they made it here."

"Yes," M says simply. "That's right."

Rae is hovering right over Wedy, the top of its skull brushing against the ceiling. L tilts his head.

_An ordinary Shinigami can't break the walls of hell, _he thinks. _But surely the king himself could. They are gods, after all. Maybe even the heir to the king could do it_.

Rae seems to notice him staring.

"The Shyster was a tough case, huh?" it asks, always perceptive.

L hunches his shoulders.

There are some things he'd rather not remember.

* * *

Wedy's appearance is followed by a few months of nothing, and a handful of text messages that only Matsuda can't work out.

L spars with Watari, eats too much cake, and spends a lot of time staring at the wall, one hand in his hair.

"This is ridiculous. Are you really just going to sit there? For the next five years?"

"Bored, Shinigami?"

"Yes, and so are you."

"Yes. There's very little else for me to do in the way of training. It's simply a matter of waiting for a new case."

Something will turn up. It always does.

"So you're perfect at everything in every way?" Rae asks incredulously. "You don't need to practice _at all_?"

"Perhaps," L muses. "Practice seems rather pointless right now, however."

"You know, this is a novel idea, but you could always practice using the dea-"

"No."

Rae floats off, presumably to sulk, and comes back in ten minutes with something black and white that L hasn't seen in years.

"If you're so perfect," the Shinigami says with a feral grin, "let's see you try playing chess against a god."

L gives it a tiny smile.

"All right," he says.

* * *

"So, what do you guys think of this case?" T asks, excitedly. "Eighteen dogs murdered over the past three nights in San Francisco."

"Do we even care?" M asks, nastily, without looking up from his computer.

"Aw, come on," T says. "This is horrible stuff, guys. Animals are completely defenceless against human cruelty."

"My job is not to remedy 'horrible stuff'," L articulates. "It is to solve the unsolvable. What you want is to contact the relevant police, and local animal protection groups."

"But they're murdered _brutally_," T says, never one to give up on a lost cause. "And I just. I don't know. Doesn't this _bother_ anyone else? It's always the same type of dog, too. And the murderers never leave a trace behind!"

"What do you think, Rae?" L asks. R glances at him, surprised.

"I think it's a waste of time, personally. It takes little effort to break into a back yard without arousing suspicion."

"Even T could do it," M adds laconically.

L doesn't point out that even when it comes to breaking into homes, banks, or military sites, the criminals capable are very rarely of his calibre. Leaving no trace takes only a very basic knowledge of biology and a minimum of protective gear and common sense.

Anyway, although his team will never know, it was not Raye Penber's opinion he was seeking.

"Hmm, all labradore-poodle crosses, only entire animals targeted, very elite part of town," the Shinigami says boredly. "It's got to be a die-hard purebred dog breeder who wants to get rid of popular crossbreeds."

_Correct_, L thinks. _And since when did you start helping me without complaint, question, or sarcastic comment?_

And he wonders.

* * *

"The others are getting Italian take-away," L says to his Shinigami, four nights later. "I know you don't really need to eat, but I can order something for you, if you'd like. It'd probably need to be something sweet, to avoid arousing suspicion."

"No," Rae says, apparently surprised. "That's okay. But, uh, thanks."

He can still feel it's red eyes burning into the back of his head as he walks away.

* * *

Another six weeks of nothing, and then, like the proverbial buses, two cases come at once. L sends N, R and T to India to investigate a string of murderers who all appear to have been controlled somehow.

"Not another death note, surely," T says anxiously.

"No fucking way," M agrees. He's staying with L. They're hot on the heels of a hacker who's been creating havoc - seemingly for no financial or social gain - on various government websites and programs. So far he's managed to lock all of the city's traffic lights to green, and totally jam up the public transport system.

"Unlikely," L adds. The accused are all very much alive and in jail. "It's not so difficult to convince an emotionally vulnerable person that you have power over them. I don't believe a supernatural force is the only possible solution."

"Right."

They leave the next morning. L sits up for most of the night with M. He probably doesn't need anyone else's help to catch the hacker. But he _is_ worried about how successful the others will be.

He excuses himself and goes to the bathroom for a little privacy. Rae's comments about appearing mentally unstable had not escaped his notice.

"I'd like you to go with the others to India, please," he says, no preamble.

"What? How will that help? None of them can see or hear me?"

"I know," L says. "I also know that Shinigami move quickly, and are capable of using objects in the human world. I presume there would be ways you could report back to me without arousing suspicion?"

"Well, yes," Rae says dubiously.

"So we are agreed?" L asks. He examines his reflection. His hair is flopping into his mouth more frequently than usual. It might be time to get N to give him another trim.

"No."

"No?"

"No," the Shinigami repeats. "I won't go."

"Oh," L says quietly, weighing this response in his mind. "And just...just when I thought-"

"I want to stay with you," Rae adds quickly.

* * *

And Rae does. L can't remember spending so much time with any one other person. During cases, L refers at least half of his own conclusions to Rae before he announces them to the others. Between cases, they play chess, or engage in juvenile battles-of-the-wits, which L invariably wins (at least according to his own mental scoreboard). Maybe he even sleeps a little better, knowing that there's someone else in the room.

Which is strange, in itself.

Wedy makes contact, after weeks of silence, by calling Matsuda at four am in the morning. Whatever she says makes him so flustered he drops the phone and accidentally disconnects the call.

"Oh no," N says, geniunely sympathetic.

"It's okay," T says placatingly, apparently having recovered quickly. "She's pretending to flirt with me. I think she's actually laughing at me behind my back. She's not the first girl to do that."

"Why don't you just flirt back and see?" R suggests, clearly sick of the whole thing already.

"No," T says firmly. "Then I'd only look like an idiot."

M mutters something vehemently under his breath, and even L has to admit it takes a certain strength to not make snide comments when he leaves himself wide open like that.

Wedy's certainly looking for something, though. She meets up with them on their next case, child porn ring based in Germany, apparently by accident.

"Hallo L. Matt. Hey, gorgeous."

Matsuda clears his throat, apparently having steeled himself to appear confident and unruffled.

"It's not nice to make fun," he says loudly, not quite looking her in the eye. "I'd prefer it if you greeted me in some other way, or not at all."

"Okay," Wedy says, smooth and unconcerned, and she takes her time elegantly stubbing her cigarette out on a wall before she grabs him by the collar and kisses him on the lips.

L still has nothing to say. He left himself wide open for that one, too.

* * *

They don't bust the porn ring. Matsuda manages to screw up his hacking so badly that the perpetrators get a sufficient head-start to dissipate completely.

He also seems to have been deprived of the power of speech.

"Are you sure?" Rae asks, sounding uncertain itself. "I know you said you trust him, it's just. How could anyone do that by accident? Honestly, by accident? Even if he's not working against you now, he could be easily swayed, surely."

"We've had this discussion," L says. He's already grumpy about losing the case, even though he knows it's only temporary. "T stays."

"I just worry about you sometimes," Rae admits. "I don't want to see you brought down by someone like him.

L stares at it. He's lying flat on his bed, exhausted and mostly comfortable.

"No one ever really worries about me," he says, slowly.

* * *

When L realises they've been together for over ten months, he figures it's as good a time as any to ask.

"Rae?"

"Yes?"

Odd, how he's gotten used to that hoarse, high, hell-voice in normal conversation.

"As the king of gods, will you have the power to save a human from hell, if you choose?"

"Oh yeah, absolutely," Rae says, as if its nothing. "Why? You got someone in mind?"

L thinks of blonde hair and evil grins and Mail's happiness.

"Yes. My protege. He's there. Wrongfully, I believe."

Rae laughs, but it's not the usual, awful giggle. It's almost a parody of L's own chuckle.

"So now you see fit to judge people? After all your little speeches?"

L shrugs.

"It is acceptable for any idiot to judge someone as innocent."

"I see. Logically unsound, morally perfect," Rae says. "Hey, isn't that how people describe you, sometimes?"

But there's no real bite to its voice. It's teasing, the way friends tease each other.

"Will you answer my question, Rae?" L asks.

"It's possible I may be able to help you," Rae says. "But it depends on the circumstances. Give me a name and I'll see what I can do."

L wonders if that means Rae is actually going to leave his side, or if it can commune with the king and other gods without actually travelling anywhere.

"Mihael Keehl," he says. "Known as Mello. I imagine his most prominent crimes were killing a large number of the original SPK staff, and kidnapping two police officers."

"Mello, huh?," Rae says thoughtfully. "Okay. Leave it with me."

"Thank you."

* * *

L notices people. He notices everyone. Even when he's crouched in a chair, shovelling pie into his mouth and seemingly absorbed in a cup of tea, a book, a phonecall, a computer screen, a tower of liquorice allsorts. It doesn't matter, he'll still be completely aware of his surroundings. He'll know the college girl who's standing behind him and staring at his hair in dismay has an examination tomorrow, by the way she grips her textbooks. He'll know that the baby in the arms of the couple three carriages down had whooping cough a month ago, by the way that it cries.

He sees everyone.

He just doesn't care for anyone.

Not particularly. He was orphaned at a young age, and was declared a genius at an even younger age. He has no peers, save perhaps for one murderous psychopath who's thankfully incapacitated in hell. Every particularly intelligent person he's met has wound up either defeated by him or working under him.

He's justice. He saves people. He protects people. Every single person he meets is a key, a way to prove he's a better detective than yesterday, than five minutes ago. Every person is a learning experience, something new. No one exactly fits anyone else's category.

He is justice. And he is above everyone. Cold, impersonal, without emotion. L.

He wishes Watari had never taken him back to his old orphanage. He wishes he'd never met the three boys who broke all his resolve, whom he accidentally cared for. Whom he tried very hard never to meet again, because they were such a danger to him.

They weren't his children, it was ridiculous to even think of them as being his children. They weren't young enough, to start with. Never mind the fact that he'd never been interested enough in another human being to bother having a romantic relationship, let alone a sexual one.

Without a doubt, they weren't his children. But he'd given them names, and taught them a little of what he knew. They became his long-distance apprentices, and he eagerly awaited the yearly reports of how much they'd learned, of how great they'd become.

He can still remember the last email Roger ever sent him.

'_Near is top of his class_,' it had stated. '_Brilliant beyond his peers, beyond his years. Perhaps one day he will be a rival to you, L_.'

How wrong he'd been.

'_I will not state again how much it displeases me to think of them as your potential successors_. _L is a hero to all the children here, and you should be considered invincible. For their sake._'

Invincible. Also wrong.

'_However, as requested by W, we have organised them in rank according to academic achievement, IQ, logical ability, common sense, deductive reasoning, and overall brilliance._'

"You always miss the most important thing," L had said out loud. "If I am defeated, you will not win against Kira with a proxy version of myself."

'_They stand as follows. 1) Near. 2) Mello. 3) Matt. I'm not even sure you know who Matt is, but I doubt there will ever be a situation where he succeeds the other two_. _I imagine this list pleases you. I know Near is your favourite_.'

Wrong again.

"Is that piece of wall particularly fascinating?" Rae asks, maybe a little gently. "You've been staring at it for the past fifteen minutes. Did you find a new case in that crack?"

"Oh," L says. "I apologise. My mind wandered."

Rae must have picked up on his sombre tone.

"Seriously, then. Are you okay?"

L puts his hands on his knees and smiles.

"Yes. I'm fine."

* * *

The Shinigami doesn't mention Mello for twenty days after that, and L has started to theorise that it's forgotten the whole thing when it finally brings it up.

"So. Keehl."

L is lounging on the balcony of a hotel room in Venice, doing research on a potential case. He pushes his laptop aside immediately and gives the death god his full attention.

"Can you do it?"

Rae winces.

"Yes and no?"

"Explain," L says, toes twitching. He already has some idea of what it's going to say.

"In my present position, I have less power than the king," Rae admits, sounding thoroughly irritated by that fact. "I can't...only he can deal with the other gods. I technically lack his capabilities because I am not crowned."

"I see," L says, folding his hands behind his head. "So you cannot move Mello out of hell."

"It's...it's got something to do with the queen," Rae continues. It might even be telling the truth. "I don't know. I've never met her. No one knows who she is, except the king."

"So this whole venture is actually pointless," L deadpans. "And your 'yes and no' answer was, in fact, a lie."

The Shinigami sits down beside him.

"Probably," it says, sadly. "I mean, yes. Yes, you're right. I mean, unless..."

It trails off, staring at L with uncharacteristic uncertainty.

L's shoulders shake, just once, but he keeps his expression blank.

"Unless what, Rae?"

"Unless you make me king," it says. "I mean, I know. I know your position. I know what you'll say. I just. You have the death note. That's all."

"I see," L muses. "So, presuming you'll agree to help me, what we have is a mutually beneficial situation, if I'm prepared to use the note?"

Rae turns to face him, side of its skull grating against the brick wall. He thinks maybe its red eyes are wider than before.

"You'd...consider that?" it asks, surprised. "I would...of course I would help you, if you'd do this for me. I could get him back into this world in under a day."

It's tone has changed. It sounds almost friendly. L smiles, suddenly. A betrayal.

"I feel different," it continues. "I used to dislike you, but I suppose I never really got to know you. I...I like you. Listen. You don't have to use the note if you don't want to. I understand what it means to you. But, then I can't help you. So you see, it's up to you."

The Shinigami gets to its feet and regards him earnestly.

"So, what do you think? Do we have a deal?"

L's nose twitches. The conversation could probably continue for another five minutes or so before Rae talked itself into a corner, but he's not sure he's capable of keeping it in any longer and not exploding.

So he snorts.

It's like the tip of an iceberg, an avalanche, unstoppable. He starts giggling, light and stupid, with none of Rae's evil undertones. His arms are shaking and he presses both hands to his mouth, unable to stop, unable to do anything except crescendo and escalate, until he's rolling on the ground in unabashed hysteria, laughing.

"I don't understand," the death god says, warily. "Why are you laughing?"

It takes L a good three minutes after that to get himself under control. He sits up, gasping.

"You," he says, still smiling. "_You're_ funny."

"What? Why?"

"I have to admit, you were fairly clever," L says, tugging at his hair. "I think you actually _did_ honestly have some interest in the Arcy case, and when you realised I was treating you a little less harshly than before, you just continued on. I'm impressed with the depth, and the sheer amount of effort you've used. It must have been a good, what, nine months you've wasted."

L stares up at it brightly.

"Did you honestly think I'd believe all that?"

"All _what_?" Rae asks, as if it doesn't know, as if the flames aren't already threatening to engulf it's entire face in anger.

"That you were my _friend_," L says, in a fresh peal of mirth. "That you actually _liked_ me. Your actions didn't even make _sense_. God, you must think I'm really fucking stupid."

Rae stares at him for a long time without speaking, burning up with rage. L feels like _he's_ the one who's king of the world.

"_Fuck_ you," Rae says, and L has never heard so much venom and hatred packed into two syllables.

L presses a hand to his heart, still snickering.

"But I thought you _loved_ me, Rae," he says dramatically, channelling Matsuda for a moment, completely stupid.

"You're a filthy, disgusting, cowardly human being, and you'll die all alone. And I'll _laugh_."

And with that, the Shinigami leaves, just flounces right off the balcony and disappears into the city outside.

L gets up, grinning, and goes inside.

_Exactly as planned._

There's something he needs to do.

* * *

_Rebecca Remira_.

"Watari?"

"Yes, L?"

"I'm researching an old case at the minute," L says calmly. "For practice purposes. Can you send me everything you can get on Mark and Rebecca Remira?"

"The nineteenth century serial killers?" Watari clarifies, voice neutral. L figures Watari must know theirs was a fairly open-and-shut case, but the last thing he'll do is question L.

"That's correct."

"Sending it now, L."

His own research has already revealed the basic story. Rebecca Starling had been a middle-class citizen of London, England, in the early nineteenth century. The daughter of a merchant, fairly well-educated, apparently beautiful. Married a respectable, much older man when she was still fairly young. Around the same time, Mark Remira had become infamous as the murderer that no detective could catch. He stabbed his victims, always with the same sort of knife; a six-inch trench knife, french version. Believed to be an evolved sort of cat-burgular, light-fingered, able to easily enter and leave even the most secure of homes.

His target? The rich. A sort of sadistic, screwed-up Robin Hood, out for life instead of money.

Rebecca's husband had been an intended victim. But when Mark had entered under some pretext of being a friend of a friend, the old man hadn't been home. Only Rebecca. Apparently her less-than-rich family history protected her from becoming a victim, and to keep his facade, he chatted with her for a while before leaving.

As to what was said, L imagines he'll never know, but the outcome was obvious. Six days later, Rebecca left her husband, abandoned her lifestyle, and became Remira's sidekick. And a year later, his wife.

Which made no sense, but there's no accounting for love.

When the two Remiras were caught, Rebecca confessed to every single murder, claiming that Mark had only been an accessory and that she'd bullied him into helping her. Any detective would have found her statement to be grossly untrue - she had claimed responsibility for murders that happened before she'd even met Mark - but no detectives were consulted. A police-only matter. She was executed within the month.

_Am I supposed to be compelled by how controlled she is by her own emotions?_ L wonders. _Such reckless behaviour can't possibly benefit anyone._

_Is this supposed to be a warning?_

Mark picked up another woman, younger, prettier, and went right on killing.

_Falling in love is such a dangerous venture. Look at M. Heck, look at T. Look at any of them. It makes people irrational. But why warn me? I'm not even sure I'm capable of it._

L swivels on his chair, thinking. But there's really not much to think about. Rebecca Remira's story isn't a crime novel, or a case study, it's a tragedy. He has no idea why he needed to research her case. Even if she's alive, she's probably fairly harmless.

"How could this possibly benefit me?" L asks the empty room. "It's so simple. Unless Mark was using some method other than blind love to control Rebecca, I can't see the value in it."

Unless...can Shinigami see the future? Is a copycat crime going to happen here in the second world? Is it a hint? Is there some hidden message in a file or internet site about Rebecca that he's supposed to find?

The only real detail is the knife used. Is that it? What would he do with a replica of the trench knife? Could he use it to kill Rae?

Surely not.

Would he use it to kill Rae?

L checks the calendar.

Eight and a half days until Rae should be meeting with the Shinigami king.

He supposes he'll find out then.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you

+ I suppose, although this is a perpetually ridiculous thing to say, that I would really appreciate any constructive comments at this point.

+ having said that, this fic is mostly written for my own benefit, so I'm not likely to stop writing just because people don't like it/don't comment.


	9. Company

notes/warnings

+ return of the second-person POV

+ swearing, as usual

+ updated the summary and categories. this will eventually be a romance. (in fact, the whole point of this fic was to challenge myself to write a pairing that I, personally, hate. wooo).

* * *

**Company**

Forty-eight hours later, they're back in the United States, and in the middle of researching a new kidnapping case, when M opens the window and casually fires a shot into the next building.

R grabs him and tackles him to the floor.

"You've actually gone _insane_," he roars. "_What did you just do_?"

"He shot someone," T says, peering through the curtains. His hands are shaking where they rest on the table.

"Someone who was pointing a gun at L," M grits. "Get fucking off me."

"He's correct," L says, sipping his tea. "That man did appear to be about to shoot me."

"Pity he didn't get the chance, really," Rae says darkly.

L smiles. It's sort of refreshing to have the Shinigami back to it's old self. More of a challenge.

"You...what?" R gasps, releasing M on the floor. "He was? You _noticed_ and you didn't do anything?"

"What I know and our sniper probably didn't know is that the glass is at least seventy percent bullet proof," L says. "He would have needed to go through a lot of ammunition before he got to me. I daresay I would have ducked by then."

"Then there was no need for M to shoot him," N says, aghast.

"He didn't shoot to kill," L verifies.

"That's right," M mutters.

"I would appreciate it if some of you went up there and brought him in for questioning," L adds cheerfully. "I'm sure there's a lot we could learn from him. Like who he works for, and what he's doing shooting through windows at perfectly ordinary citizens such as myself."

* * *

The sniper's name is Jessica Peterson, and she tells them everything at the first threat of torture.

"I don't know the name of the man I was supposed to shoot," she says, sobbing underneath her blindfold. "I was just hired to kill the dark-haired man working on the twenty-second floor of this building. That's all I know."

"Why did they want this man dead?" L asks through his voice filter.

"They believe he is connected to the detective L," she says sadly.

"We wouldn't have actually tortured her if she'd resisted, right?" R asks, eyeing L carefully. "Surely someone as intelligent as you doesn't need to resort to that sort of thuggery?"

L ignores him.

"Never mind that," N hisses. "She knows who you are!"

"No, she knows I am connected to me," L corrects. "There is a difference."

"I don't think so," R argues. "Even if you presume that M's hair is too neutral to be considered dark, that still leaves a choice of three people matching her description. Why did she go for you?"

"Because I was sitting in the most difficult position to shoot, of course," L says in a derogatory voice. "She was intending to take all three of us before we could react."

"You can't possibly know that!"

L shrugs and switches his microphone on again.

"Why do they want L dead?"

"Am I going to die?" she asks, breath hitching. "Please, I don't want to die. Not again. Please throw me in jail after this. They'll kill me if they find out I spoke to you."

"Just answer the question, please," L instructs, patiently.

"I don't know, they don't talk about it. He's wronged them, somehow. I don't know who they are, but they're rich, really rich. The sort of people that are obsessed with making money. I don't know if it's a business, or a family, or some sort of firm. Heck, they could be government agents. I don't know."

"Why did they instruct you to come here?" L asks. "Why did they connect us to L?"

She lifts her head.

"Are...are you not connected to L?" she asks, tremulously. "With all the gadgets and the amazing firearms skills, I presumed you must be."

She doesn't know which one of them she's talking to, of course.

"A few of my men have met L in the past, once or twice," L says. "We're a part of the FBI. Even if my men had been capable of contacting that particular detective, how would it benefit your employers to shoot him dead?"

"I think they believe L will show himself if enough people close to him are killed," she replies. "I actually think that sounds stupid, but who am I to question half a million dollars?"

"Thank you," L says. "That is all. The police are on their way."

* * *

"So who do you think was behind that?" N asks him. "And more importantly, were they intending to target you, Raye, or Matsuda?"

"I can't say for certain," L says. "Certainly, there are a number of people who - due to their circumstances before they died - would be able to connect either Raye or Matsuda to me. In addition, I have occasionally appeared as my own agent a number of times since dying. I imagine it could be any of us."

"It's not a good strategy, at any rate," M says lazily. "Like you'd show yourself just because they murdered someone you met once."

"If they murder frequently enough it might work," L says, chewing on his thumbnail. "If we were talking about hundreds of people, it would only be right of me to show my face."

Of course, if they'd targeted M, he'd have been forced to comply with them immediately. But very few people knew that, and clearly Jessica's employers weren't among them.

"It seems like a pretty isolated incident to me," T says. "I mean, there's been nothing before or since. Just a one off. You're bound to have enemies, L, that's just the way things are."

"Quite," L says. "All the same, I believe we should abandon this case and go somewhere else for a little while. Just to be on the safe side."

* * *

"L!"

"You don't have to exclaim everything you say, you know," L says sleepily. He's doing a little more research on the Remiras. Rae is off somewhere sulking again. It seems to hardly be able to stand being near him at all, which suits him just fine.

Of course, he's not sure whether his research actually _needs_ to be kept secret from his Shinigami, but he'd prefer to be careful.

"Oh, right. Um. L?"

"What is it, T?"

Matsuda rubs the ankle of one foot against the back of his calf. L already knows what it is, of course.

"Um, I just got another call. From W-Wedy."

"Oh? Does she have information for me?"

He's in a sarcastic sort of mood.

"Uh, I don't...yes, she must. She wants to meet up. Er, but just with me. I don't know why. I think she's getting paranoid."

"That must be it," L says.

"It's at the Botanical Gardens, about half an hour's drive away," T continues, clearly nervous.

L's gaze lingers on the computer screen for a good few minutes before he looks up.

"So, er, can I go? She must have an important lead!"

L stares at him blankly.

"You don't really think this is about a lead, do you?" he asks, slowly.

Matsuda flushes and stares at his shoes.

"I...I don't know?"

"I think it's about time you did know," L tells him. "For my part, you don't need my permission to see people in your own time. Your private life is your own."

Matsuda looks up, slack-jawed.

"But I thought she was still considered a criminal. Am I not supposed to arrest her, if given a chance?"

"Yes, perhaps," L says. "But arresting her now would not benefit us as a team. She is useful. I suspect the correct thing to do would be to arrest Wedy only when we have rendered all the other criminals in the world such that she is the worst that remains."

Matsuda processes that for a minute, and smiles brightly, childishly.

"Thanks, L. You're the best."

L lifts one corner of his mouth.

"Good luck, Matsuda."

"Thanks. Hey, you said my name again."

Oh yes. He always slips up on Matsuda. It's hard to file him away, as just a faceless employee, as only a set of abilities, weak points, and uses. He's so intrinsically human.

And he shot Kira.

"Yes, I suppose I did."

Matsud...T! T leans over him for a moment.

"Ooh. Old cases. I used to hate reading about the Remiras when I studied criminal history in school. Such an awful story."

"That she loved him so much and he left her to die?" L asks, raising an eyebrow. That fact isn't particularly worthy of being exclaimed. He wonders if T has already started to become a little softer, even before anything has really developed between Wedy and himself.

"What? No. I just hated the bit where he thought she was cheating on him and _slash_," T lunges at him, brandishing an imaginary knife.

L blinks, nonplussed.

"He cut out her eye," T finishes with a dramatic gesture. "Isn't that gross?"

_Not really_, L thinks. _What's gross is that she let him_. _How can someone continue to love a person after that sort of treatment._

_No one is capable of that much love._

L realises with a jolt that that statement isn't quite true.

_Misa Amane was_, he thinks, carefully. _Is that what I'm supposed to see, Rem? Are you trying to vindicate Misa?_

It's true that Amane may have been without significant blame. He can't possibly know how overpowering her love for Light Yagami truly was. There is no way to judge the depth of another person's emotions, not even for him.

"I'm more interested in how you know about Rebecca and Mark," he says out loud, thumbing his mouth. "It's not even a well-known case, let alone famous."

"Oh, I used to read a lot of crime textbooks when I was a kid," T tells him. "I didn't really have many friends at school, so that was what I did. I remember a lot of them. Especially the ones that bothered me."

L regards him keenly.

"Some day, I'd like to open up your mind and take a look inside," he says, succinctly.

"Uhh," T says, looking severely frightened. "Um. I'm not sure I'd like that."

L turns back to his computer.

"Please ask Wedy if she knows of anyone who is presently tailing you, R, or myself," he says, with a dismissive wave. "Contact us, obviously, if you run into any trouble."

T's face lights up, predictable.

"Yes L! I will."

* * *

Wedy escorts a bewildered Matsuda back to the complex within the hour.

"There were two men following us," she says by way of explanation. "I shook them on the drive here. Don't worry, there were no bugs placed on the car."

"I wouldn't even have asked," L says.

She's shaking. He's never seen her ruffled or nervous before.

"What happened to them? Did you see their faces?"

"I'm sure you could go and see their faces yourself, if you want," she snaps. "But I doubt it will do your investigation any good. They certainly aren't going to talk."

"You _killed_ people?" R asks darkly. N shakes her head at him and ushers all of them further into the building.

"We should stay away from the windows," she says softly, always the voice of reason. "Especially you, T."

"Yes, I shoot people who are trying to shoot at people I care about," Wedy informs him coolly. "Don't you?"

"More snipers," L says quietly.

"Snipers," Matsuda echoes, hollowly. He's quivering and wide-eyed. Wedy has one perfectly-manicured hand on the small of his back, rubbing in small circles, but L doubts he's noticed.

"Then it's T they're after," N says, sounding a little awed. "Why?"

_T. Yes._

"And on top of that, they've _followed_ us," R says.

"We have been spending a lot of time in England, recently," L says thoughtfully. "Perhaps we have been lax to return here so often, and for so long."

He's reluctant to leave, though. Rem said she'd contact him in three days time. And he's not sure of where she'll be or if she can track him easily. Surely even Shinigami are limited in some way by how far and how fast they can travel.

Last time, he was in London. Surely it would be best to stay in London.

"_You_ are the one making all the decisions," R says angrily. "Now you're telling us they may have endangered our lives?"

"Yes," L pronounces. "I will not conceal my own mistakes. However, I'm only twelve percent certain that our being in this particular city has at all influenced whether or not our stalkers found T. I suspect they were probably tracking us in some way."

"That's not possible," R says, with certainty. "Not with you and Watari and my wife on the team."

"Of course it's not impossible," M says. He's been leaning against the wall, staring straight through Wedy as if he loathes her just for being blonde and wearing leather. "If these people are rich, they could have spies everywhere."

"And when you and R went out to the store yesterday, no one followed you?" L asks N.

"No," she replies. "I'm certain of that."

She can't be one hundred percent certain, but L's prepared to let that slide. For now.

"And no one attacked M when he went to church the day before," L continues. "In both instances, the parties were gone for over two hours. But T was targeted in a quarter of that time."

"Yeah," T says weakly. "They were really fast."

He's leaning against Wedy. L feels strangely protective, and presses his fingers to his palm in a momentary, brief imitation of clenching his fist.

"Meaning that whoever sent the snipers only recognised Matsuda as being connected to L," he says, considering. "Which means that whatever run-in they had with me must have occurred after your death, Nao...N."

She raises her eyebrows at him but doesn't speak.

L sorts through his memories. Who knew about Matsuda working with L? Their identities were kept fairly secret, after all.

"I have a question," T says, voice tremulous.

"Do you? That's nice," M says dismissively, and N slaps him hard across the face.

"Learn some goddamn compassion," she growls. He doesn't respond.

"Go on," L says, addressing only T. The man looks far too vulnerable. L briefly despises him for it.

"These people could have had their run-in with L after you died, too," he says. "I mean, it was never publicised that L was replaced, or that the person who was L for the last four years turned out to be...you know."

"Kira," L says. "Light. You only make it sound worse if you avoid saying it."

"Right," T says, hanging his head.

"You also make a valid point," L adds, rubbing his hands together. "Okay. M? I want you to list everyone who could possibly have known Matsuda was associated with L after I died. Get T to help you. I will compile a list for the time period prior to that. We'll narrow our investigation down to those individuals."

The entire situation would have been slightly less stressful if Rae weren't sitting right beside him, laughing softly and making derogatory comments about Matsuda.

"N, I want you to leave with Wedy. See if anyone else is tailing her. Double back when you're certain she is alone."

"Yes, L."

"Wedy, go now. Please contact me if you notice anything like this again."

"Sure thing, babe," she says, mussing Matsuda's hair as she passes him. He gazes up at her with a lost, frightened expression.

"Is this guy a detective or a little child?" Rae asks nastily. "Look at him. He's going to _cry_."

"R? Please contact the local police and get me photographs and names of the men who were tailing Wedy and Ma...T."

R salutes grimly.

"And as for you," L says, finally coming back to Matsuda.

"Um, yeah. This is all k-kinda scary. Why me?"

"I don't know," L admits. "But as of right now, you don't leave this building, and you don't leave my sight."

"But-"

"I have handcuffs if you don't feel like complying," L says calmly, and Matsuda flushes and sputters at the same time.

"Which means we're both confined to the inner rooms, away from the windows and doors," L says. "Hm. I'll need to have Watari make some alterations to the locking system. And we'll need to move your bedroom to a more central part of the building."

"Is this really necessary?" Matsuda asks, clearly overwhelmed.

"Yes," L says simply.

_You must be safe_.

It's only three days until Rem is supposed to contact him again.

* * *

The stalkers turn out to be hireable snipers, excellent in their field but no known loyalties. No links to their most recent employers were found, either.

Typical.

Wedy has been left alone, so L presumes she killed them before they could make any reports about the woman accompanying Matsuda. The others in his team have similarly not been attacked, confirming L's earlier suspicions.

Only a very select few people know that Touta Matsuda is still in contact with L. Common knowledge is that L works alone. Therefore, their enemy is either someone very close to them, or a common thug who is happy to murder on the off-chance that it might affect L. If it is the latter, than anyone seen in Matsuda's company would likely become an intended victim as well.

L grinds his teeth a little. He'd have preferred, honestly, to see N or R targeted. At least they'd be more able to look after themselves. And his personal view of both of them is strictly professional. But Matsuda..._T_ is such a source of comfort to him. If he's not careful, he'll react illogically.

And he can't afford any mistakes.

When the first list is finished, he has M do a little background reading and earmark the high-earning individuals and companies. The snipers had all been expensive, and he was about fifty percent certain there were also spies employed by the same group.

He already has some suspicion of who is responsible, but he's not even one percent certain. He needs more proof. A lot of people hate L, of course, and Matsuda was never particularly careful with his own identity.

Their list of possible suspects contains nine hundred and twenty-two entities. Searching the recent financial records and tailing prominent individuals could take over a year.

L's pretty certain they can't keep this up for a year. In fact, he'd prefer to have it over with in two days.

He checks his email. No one has requested the services of Eraldo Coil in order to help defeat L. It would only be too easy if they had.

The problem, he knows, is this. The longer he lives, the more he does, the more people will know something about him. And the more people know about him, the less safe he will be. Theoretically, he shouldn't last a full twenty-five years in this world, because more people can identify him. And if there's a third place to go, if he dies here, he should be even easier to beat.

Eventually, L Lawliet will be truly, completely dead. Spurned from every world as soon as he arrives, permanently in limbo, too many enemies. Eventually, he will burn out.

That is just the way the world works.

* * *

"Hey L?"

"Yes?"

Matsuda can't keep quiet for longer than two minutes. And when L's not being interrupted from his research, his mind keeps wandering to a pointless and irrational dislike for his Shinigami. It has been mostly silent recently, and L isn't sure whether it's sulking or plotting. Probably both.

_So childish_, he thinks. _I wonder how old it is_?

_Do gods of death even have ages? Or are they immortal?_

He'd like to be immortal.

"I was just thinking," Matsuda says, "about how maybe...uh..."

"I see," L says. "You don't have to fill the silence all the time, you know."

"I know," the other man says awkwardly. "I just. Sometimes I think it would be better if you didn't protect me."

"Better?" L muses.

"Well, if I don't associate with you guys, then they'll just shoot _me_ and be done with it. Even if they're investigating other people, it's clearly not any of _us. _It's dangerous right now because I actually _am_ your associate. These people may not realise it, but they're really close. What if they bust into here trying to find me?"

"I see. And if you just went out there on your own, there would be no repercussions for me?" L asks, intrigued.

"Well, it's not as if you're really going to get mad and reveal yourself just because they kill _me_," he replies. "I mean, I'm hardly anyone."

"You got that right," Rae mutters.

L very discretely, and very delicately, extends his middle finger in its general direction.

Enough is enough.

"Hardly anyone," he echoes. "Well, I suppose when you consider there are approximately six billion people in the first world, and about the same number here, then any one person is 'hardly anyone'. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't value human life."

"That's not what I meant," Matsuda tells him. "I'm not important, like you and Watari. I'm not useful to the investigation the way Naomi and Raye are. I'm not talented like Mail. I'm just ordinary. Expendable. In a way, you're lucky they went after me. You can just get rid of me and not be any worse off."

L cannot easily explain the momentary rush of blind fury he feels at those words; boiling up inside him, unfamiliar and unexpected, until he feels like Rae, perpetually on fire.

It only lasts a second.

"You are absolutely wrong," he says, voice deathly quiet. "Under no circumstances are we sacrificing anyone."

"Right," Matsuda says, laughing nervously. "Right. Of course. Um, I'm glad."

L turns back to his computer screen. It's only sensible, to keep Matsuda with him. He's too useful to lose, it would be detrimental to the functioning of the team if he was killed. He's...well.

Well, the only thing he's really done is fatally wound Light.

L touches his lips. Is that one thing really worth risking his own safety, and the safety of his entire team?

Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.

Ninety-nine percent.

* * *

_Near twists his hair around his finger, over and over, like he's wringing the answers out of it. He's in a meeting with the President of the United States of America. Of course, the USA gave in to Kira a long time ago, but there's always a chance. If they're so weak, then they might give in to Near just as easily._

_"You are destabilising your own government, Mr President," he says, without respect or fear, without any sort of inflection whatsoever. "You have been brought to your knees. You need to rise up again. Wasn't America once the land of the free?"_

_The president shakes in his chair. He's scared and unsteady. Pathetic. Just like you._

_"It's been six years," he bleats. "No-one has been able to stop this guy. If we take a stand, he'll kill us all."_

_Near snorts._

_"Kira doesn't want to kill everyone," he counters with certainty. "He wants a perfect world, not an empty world."_

_Dwayne waddles up beside you. He's chewing something. Gum, maybe. Or the end of a pen. A small furry animal. Who knows, with Dwayne?_

_"He's brilliant, isn't he?" he asks admiringly. "Absolutely brilliant. I feel lucky to have been brought along for this case. I've never seen either of the two Ls in action before."_

_To the outside world, Near and L are one and the same. People say L realised he needed help shortly after he faked his own death. You're not sure of the logistics of that particular ploy. You vaguely remember that after he apparently died, he disappeared for a good four and a half years - presumed dead - before returning to the SPK, but the memory is hazy. It doesn't matter, anyway. Clearly it's all part of some genius plan that you'll never understand._

_Together, they'll win. Everyone keeps saying that._

_"Yeah," you say, and Dwayne doesn't hear you choke on the words. "He's brilliant."_

_"I...I don't know," the president babbles. "I need to consult with my ministers."_

_"You do that," Near says. He has Gevanni and Lidner with him. You're only there because you can't be trusted unsupervised, and Dwayne's there because L decided if you had company, you'd be less likely to become troublesome._

_The problem is, Kira has worked out the weak point of the SPK._

_You._

_You've been kidnapped six times in the past two years. You don't know by whom, but they always manage to torture some crucial piece of information out of you before someone inevitably bursts in to save you. It's how he's managed to stay one step ahead of the investigation. Because of you, Kira goes on._

_You can't bear to think about it._

_Near comes back out._

_"We're done here," he says, not to you. To the others. He walks right past you. _

_"Yes, sir," his cronies say in unison. Lidner spares you a tiny, sad little smile, and you wish she'd just ignored you, too._

_You hate Near, and you'd like to hate her as well. It's just easier._

_"Back to the parking lot, boss?" Gevanni asks, and you smile in spite of yourself. Near's third agent is waiting with the car, and he's by far your favourite._

_"Hey," you say, and your voice sounds stupid and uneducated compared to Near's. "Hey...Near?"_

_You want to know. You want to ask him why you're always targeted by Kira's henchmen. You're not even sure exactly what you want to ask, or how you're going to word it. Sometimes, it feels like nothing makes sense. As if you've been dreaming all this time. As if you're living in a story written by someone else._

_But the feeling only lasts for a second before it disappears. This is reality. You know it's real, it's painfully real. This is all you have, all you deserve._

_"Please don't talk to me," Near says calmly. "I have important things to do right now."_

_"Okay," you say, and go back to looking at the ground. Dwayne digs a bag of mixed sweets out of his pocket, because neither of you can go without eating for more than six minutes._

_'Addictive personality.' _

_It's written on L's file on you, alongside 'dim-witted', 'aggressive', 'tempermental', 'overweight', and 'to be considered as excess baggage'. _

_You caught a glimpse of it, once. Back when you were still convinced you were clever and one day you'd prove how useful you could be._

_It had helped you understand what you know today. That you are nothing._

_You dig out all the chocolate-covered sweets, and leave Dwayne to eat the plain ones. Serves him right._

_You all arrive back at the car. It's heavily armoured and glossy-looking. He's there, sitting on the bonnet, legs crossed in front of him. He looks amazing in a a suit and tie. He's got the stupid goggles on, pushed up into his hair, and the wedding ring on his finger is polished so brightly you can see the glint of it even when you close your eyes._

_"Near! How did it go, man?" he asks, warmly._

_Near smiles._

_"Exactly as predicted. He's reconsidering. That won't be enough on its own, of course."_

_"You're too hard on yourself," Matt says, smiling admiringly. "But then, you always are."_

_"I'm exactly hard enough," Near corrects, hopping into the car. He's so tiny that Gevanni has to help him step in._

_"Lidner," Matt says. "It's been a while."_

_She arrived by aircraft, with Gevanni. You're not sure if there's something going on between the two of them, and you don't much care._

_"It sure has," she says. "You get more handsome every day. How's the fiance? I haven't seen her in months. I can't believe you two losers haven't set a date yet."_

_He grins and pulls her into a hug, and your wish is granted. You hate her. For that one second, you despise her._

_You're evil. You really are a terrible person. You just can't help it. Everyone says that.  
_

_Lidner follows Gevanni into the car, and Dwayne gets in on the other side, guffawing about something. Which leaves just the two of you._

_"Hey," Matt says gently. "Haven't seen you for a while, either."_

_"No," you agree, staring at a spot on the parking-lot wall over his shoulder, because you haven't been able to look him in the eye in years. Your heart still skips, and you hate that too._

_"They looking after you?" he asks, and he's the only person who ever asks how you are. Except for Jasmine, of course, but you consider Jasmine to be Satan, so it doesn't count._

_"Oh, yeah," you say, stupidly. They treat you about as well as you deserve, can't ask for anything more. He knows your situation, anyway. It's a wonder he even bothers to talk to you._

_You push a hand through your hair. It's sweaty and disgusting, and about an inch long. Your fringe is longer on one side than the other, because you like to pretend it covers some of the scar. Dwayne says it makes you look retarded, and he's probably right._

_You have these memories, but they're so vague. You think maybe you used to have long hair, down past your chin. Like you remember being skinny and fitting into awesome clothes._

_Wishful thinking. You're pretty sure you've always been fat and ugly. That's what Near tells you, anyway. He'd know. You don't remember much before you put that woman in the back of a truck and almost died of a heart attack. You're still not sure how you managed to live, because she wrote your name down. Your real name. You saw it there on the paper, after they'd rescued you._

_Just one more thing you don't understand. Nothing unusual about that._

_"Hey, you awake in there?" Matt asks, waving a gloved hand in front of your face. You track the movement of his fingertips with your eyes, because you're just that sad._

_"Yes," you say quickly. "I'm fine. Sorry, what is it?"_

_"I wanted to ask you something," he says. "I mean, you were the first person to know that Jasmine and I were getting married, and I know we haven't set a date yet, but..."_

_"But what?" you ask, gently. You have no idea where the conversation could possibly go._

_He ducks his head, smiling._

_"You wanna be my best man?"_

_You don't know what to say. He'll cop all sorts of flack from putting you in that position. Heck, he's criticised just for voluntarily socialising with you. And no, no you don't want to be someone who's enabling this wedding that will make him ridiculously happy with someone else. No._

_"Yes," you say, because you're powerless against him. "Yes, of course."_

_He pulls you into a hug._

_Sometimes, you wish you'd just died in that truck._

_

* * *

_

The trouble with Matsuda is that he doesn't always understand that people aren't as friendly and open as he is, and therefore does things that could be considered annoying and completely inappropriate.

Like, for example, deciding that L's shoulder would be a good place to take a nap.

"How pathetic," Rae says flippantly as it passes, apparently making rounds of the building.

L ignores it in favour of staring at M's list. He's circled several entries. One is 'Souchiro Yagami'. Technically, it shouldn't even be there. He knows the chief wouldn't betray them, at least not intentionally. But then again, he has a ridiculously good heart, and L knows he can be fooled. Well, they were all fooled, weren't they?

Perhaps, finally, he'll contact Yagami.

Another name is 'Aiber'. T is supposed to be researching him, instead of drooling on the collar of L's shirt. He's heavy and warm. Sometimes, L wishes he'd never met Matsuda, either.

Hypothetically, Aiber might sell their information for money, L isn't certain enough of his values. But why only sell Matsuda? Surely L himself would fetch a much higher price.

Well, there are reasons, of course. Perhaps Aiber is holding out for a higher payment, or perhaps he believes L is in hell? And the same reasons could hypothetically be true for Ukita, as well. Even Matsuda's colleagues, who never really got involved in the Kira case, could link him to L. If they were swayed by money or power, then any one of them could be the informant.

And everyone is swayed by money. And power.

But the name that's really bothering him, underlined in red, is 'Yotsuba'. He knows the company has re-formed here, and obviously their ideals haven't improved even slightly since the first world. All the core members would have arrived not long after he did, so they'd have had ample time to put together this little vendetta. Presuming they weren't all in hell, of course.

"Nnn," Matsuda says, and puts his arms around L's waist, dangerously close to the hem of his shirt.

And the death note.

L shoves him awake.

"You were snoring," he says, by way of explanation. Matsuda rubs his eyes and sighs.

"Oh, sorry."

"That's okay," L tells him.

He wouldn't normally bother accepting an apology about such a trivial thing. Mello was always the one for apologies, not him. They always seem so useless. He's not sure why he feels the need to placate Matsuda.

"I guess I should get back to work," Matsuda says, rolling his chair back over to his own computer. "Oh geeze, it's after midnight."

"So it is," L agrees.

_Which means it is now officially the day that Rae will leave to visit the Shinigami king, and that Rem is supposed to contact me._

_What shall I do if she wants to meet up again? I can't speak to her here, in front of Matsuda. And I can't leave him_.

_Can I?_

L shakes his head. Why couldn't Rem have said everything she needed to say _last_ time? He'd never understand the inner workings of a death god's mind. If she expects him to drop everything again and go to some remote location to meet up, she's going to be disappointed.

His gaze slides to Matsuda, who is apparently conducting some sort of image search, which L highly doubts is related to Aiber.

_Such a child_, he thinks, and then realises with disgust that Rae said exactly the same thing.

He _wants_ to see Rem again. It's refreshing to talk to someone else who knows of Rae, hates Rae, even. Her existence offers him a small amount of exactly the same sort of animalistic, improbable safety that Matsuda's presence also brings.

L sternly reminds himself that he doesn't need any of them. He can handle Rae. And whoever is out to hurt him now. And if Light ever, ever, ever shows up again, well, he'll handle Light, too. He needs no-one. Other people can be useful, but it's irresponsible to rely upon them.

And selfish to take comfort in them.

"What?" Matsuda asks him, derailing L's train of thought.

L glances at him.

"You were sucking your thumb really hard," Matsuda says. "I figured you must be working out something awesome,"

"And you thought it would be a good idea to interrupt me?" L asks, a little more scathingly than he'd intended.

"Oh, sorry," Matsuda says shyly. "I...I guess I just get carried away sometimes, watching you work. You're amazing. You're kind of my hero."

L stares at him for a moment.

"Go back to your research," he says sternly. "You can go to bed at two, if you need to."

He doesn't need any of them.

He doesn't need any of them.

_Nothing bad can ever happen to you, Matsuda_.

* * *

This time, Rae doesn't actually mention that it's going to leave, it just walks through the wall and doesn't come back. L notices a little of the tension release in his hands, and frowns. He needs to be less affected by the death god. He still occasionally has nightmares about its eyes.

He wonders if those eyes have special powers, beyond the normal Shinigami abilities.

Strange that Rae hasn't offered him the deal, now that he thinks of it. Surely that giant, evil thing would love to cut his lifespan in half.

Matsuda gets up at six, surprisingly, and flops back into his chair.

"It was a good idea moving my bed into the office," he says, immediately bright and cheerful. "Now I can nap whenever I want."

"Yes, you probably need another four hours yet," L says. "You shouldn't try to work while sleep deprived unless you've conditioned yourself to function that way."

"Okay," Matsuda says. "Maybe I'll take a nap after breakfast. Anyway, there's something I wanted to show you, first. I found it last night."

"Is it to do with the current case?" L asks, already knowing the answer.

"Not really?"

"I see."

Matsuda thrusts a piece of paper at him. It's a print-out of a painting. L takes it and examines it, mostly to appease his employee.

"Rebecca Remira," Matsuda adds. "Artist's impression of her shortly before she died. There aren't any other illustrations. I just. I knew you were interested in her case, and I did a quick search, and this came up. You can see she's missing one eye. Well, you can't. There's a patch over it. But you get what I mean, right?"

L holds up one hand to silence him.

If the drawing is correct, she _was_ pretty. And taller than he'd expected. He's not even really sure why he takes a second look, why he's indulging Matsuda in any of this, but he does. Rebecca's face is pointed, strong chin, no wrinkles. Her hair hangs down to her shoulders in thick dreadlocks.

"She looks like a pirate, doesn't she?" Matsuda asks. "Here, I got you a picture of Mark, too."

He heads back over to the printer.

L should be thinking about how he needs to tell Matsuda to sit down and go back to work. He should be thinking about how he's going to monitor the man while in a meeting with someone no-one else can see. He should be thinking about Yotsuba, and whether they need to launch a formal investigation.

But all he can think, staring at the paper in his hands, is _oh my god_.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ dwayne is totally my self-insert

+ I don't know how far away the next chapter will be.

+ I've been warned that the premise of this fic is overly complicated, so let me see if I can explain.

everyone in the fic is dead, it's essentially 'the afterlife'. ordinary and good people just go to a near-identical world to the one they were in before they died (the 'second world'). these people are not judged or trying to redeem themselves, they're just going about their business as if they were alive. people can be killed in this 'second world', and may or may not go onto a 'third world'. people who've done 'bad things' while alive, however, are put into hell where they are given just one chance to redeem themselves before they are stuck in hell forever. what 'hell' is depends on the person. hopefully explained more in later chapters.


	10. Gods

notes/warnings

+ butchering the character of my favourite deathnote girl.

+ language.

* * *

**Gods**

"You seem happier today," Matsuda comments, poking him in the shoulder.

"Please don't touch me," L says, mostly automatically. Matsuda is incorrect, as usual. He's not happy. He's reeling. He's trying to decide if his suspicions could possibly be true. He's trying to decide if his suspicions could possibly be _fathomable_.

There's so much in this world he doesn't understand.

Yet.

"Okay!" Matsuda says, and then, a few seconds later. "Why?"

L stares at him, caught off-guard.

"Because I told you not to," he says, uselessly. He shouldn't need to explain himself. He's L. No one touches L without permission.

But Matsuda's still watching him, with an oddly serious expression.

"I think you need more friends," he declares, before returning to his computer screen.

Another thing Matsuda doesn't understand. L doesn't do 'friends', because friendship usually ends in disaster. In fact, one hundred percent of his previous attempts to be friends with people have ended in them killing him.

So no, he does not need friends.

His phone buzzes. It's a text message from an unknown number. Impossible. His phone is blocked to the point where only a few other phones in the world can contact it, and they are put through rigorous identification programs first.

_Does now suit you?_

L props his elbow on the desk. It's an ambiguous message, not in the least bit incriminating, even if someone were to later come across the phone she used.

He approves.

_My location in five minutes,_ he sends back quickly.

"Who was that? I didn't even hear your mobile make any noise," Matsuda says, surprised. L stares at his phone. Perhaps Rem didn't need to be so ambiguous. Perhaps the text message, like the rest of her, would always be invisible to other humans.

He's intrigued by a Shinigami using human technology in such a way. He wonders what other powers the gods of death possess.

_And how would I trick Rae into using them for my benefit? _

_Depends on the situation, I suppose._

"Left it on silent," L says by way of explanation. And then he calmly handcuffs Matsuda to the desk.

"Hey!"

"This may be a little annoying," L concedes. "I need to take a conference call from one of my associates, which means I have to leave you here and go into the third surveillance room."

"You can trust me, you know!"

"Hmm," L says, regarding him with scrutiny. "Yes. Perhaps one day, I will."

* * *

The third surveillance room is built into one corner of the main room, enclosed by three brick walls and a panel of one-way glass. L will be able to see Matsuda at all times. He's not sure how soundproof the room is, but that shouldn't be a problem considering he's supposed to be talking on the phone.

"Is it safe?"

L turns in time to see her come sweeping through the wall like it's made of water. She looks like she always does, unchanged. L is calmed by that fact.

"Yes, Shinigami," he says quietly. "It's safe. We can talk here."

Rem crouches next to him on the floor. Unlike Rae, she seems content to bring her face down to his level.

L still has the printout stuffed into his pocket, but he's waiting until she asks.

"So, again," she says softly. "How have you been faring, L?"

"Fine, thank you."

Her visible eye sharpens for a moment.

"And Rae has-"

"Been completely manageable," L says. "Although I have to concede that your own information about the hell process did, on one particular occasion, help me to determine that Rae was lying to me."

She closes her eye.

"I'm glad to have been of some assistance."

"Having said that, I don't intend to become a pawn in the rivalry between two gods of death," L adds firmly. "I have to live with my Shinigami for another three years and eight months. As much as I might personally agree with your viewpoint, I cannot actively dislike Rae the way you do, or I would make my own life unpleasant."

"Very well," she says, and her ethereal voice sounds somewhat annoyed.

"Why have you come?" he asks. "What is the purpose of this second meeting?"

She stares at him, her expression almost...cautious. As if maybe she's been caught out doing something wrong.

"I thought you might have more questions," she says, and she's clearly not telling the truth. If his own death god was half as transparent as Rem, L would have no problems at all getting rid of it.

"Since I consider you as something of an ally, Rem, I would prefer if you would refuse to answer my questions, rather than lie."

Rem frowns.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," she informs him, coolly.

"Is this about you trying to protect me from my own Shinigami?" he asks. "If it is, I appreciate the sentiment, but I will refer you to my previous statement on the matter."

"Ungrateful, aren't you," she observes.

"You are here because you aim to foil Rae in some way, and not because you have any interest in my own well-being," L reminds her. "You told me as much the last time we met."

"That is true," Rem concedes. "Popular opinion also states that you are a force of real justice, of which I categorically approve."

"I cannot save Misa," he says bluntly. "As we also discussed before."

"You do not need to remind me of that fact."

"I see," L says, scratching his chin. "All right, then. Let me think. Do I have any questions? It's true that I harbour some curiosity about the Shinigami and their realm."

There are no sweets in the room. He fidgets with the hem of his jeans, instead. It's a poor substitute.

"So, Shinigami have genders. Or, some Shinigami have genders. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"So, is the king always male?"

"Not at all," Rem says. "The previous king was female, if I remember correctly. She was before my time, however. The title of 'king' simply means 'leader'."

"Very much like the title 'president'," L muses. "I see. And how fascinating, to have an entire species with only one leader."

"We are gods," Rem says, drawing herself up to her full height. "Not _animals_. Please don't discuss us using such flippant comments"

Well, perhaps he won't wait until she asks.

"I see," L says. "And are you all truly gods?"

She stares at him for a moment.

"What kind of a question is that?" she asks, hoarsely. Her tone is uneasy, and somewhat resigned.

L takes the paper from his pocket and flicks it at her.

"Rebecca Remira. The woman you wanted me to research. Housewife, murderer, inmate, tragic figure."

She hovers over the sheet, without touching it. It's lying face-down on the ground.

"Don't you want to look at it?" L asks with interest.

"I...I don't remember her face," Rem says, voice barely audible. "I don't want to see it again. I just...wanted you to know."

"So, she was someone you loved?" L asks. "Your first human companion, perhaps, Rem? Was that why you wanted me to know how she suffered? Or did you just want me to research someone who was in a situation that was similar to Misa's, so that I would understand Misa's pain and forgive her?"

Rem looks down at him, both relief and disappointment plastered across her face. L smiles indulgently.

"Those are the things that I would say if I were just slightly less intelligent than I actually am," L adds, languidly repositioning himself on his chair. "However, Rebecca Remira was never someone that you cared for. And you probably never recognised her similarities to Amane-"

"She was _nothing like_ Misa Amane," Rem roars, her voice suddenly awful. "Misa was _never_ evil!"

L is unmoved.

"In fact, I'd say that Rebecca was the one person in the whole world you never loved, not even a little bit. Am I right?"

"Take back what you said about Misa," Rem demands obstinately.

L gazes at her. He's never tried to stare a Shinigami down before, mostly because the only Shinigami he's met more than briefly has eyes so horrible L is sure he'd go mad if he glanced at them for more than a second.

Rem looks away. Slowly, she sinks back to the ground.

"Hell...works in many ways," she pronounces, simply.

"Rebecca," L says.

"That name is dead."

"She is still you," L says. "You are Rebecca Remira. A human that became a god of death. Am I incorrect?"

* * *

Rem is silent for a moment.

"You still look enough like your old photograph," L adds. "Some features remain the same."

Rem reaches out and touches the dirty carpeted floor with one finger.

"'Became' is such a pretty word," she says, finally. "I did not become this. This is my punishment. This body, this mind. These eyes. This role. This is my hell."

So it's true. L's mind boggles a little with the enormity of it all.

_Hell. What? What is hell? If you are in hell, and you are here, does that mean that others in hell are also here?_

_Where is he, Rem?_

"Are all Shinigami like you?" he asks, curiously.

"No. Very few are like me. Ryuk, for example, has never been human. He is eternally a god of death, absolutely immortal. I am weak by Shinigami standards. Easy to kill and manipulate because of my origins."

"If that is true, then Rae must also be absolutely immortal," L surmises. "Completely, utterly, absolutely immortal."

Because Rae is the least human thing he has ever encountered.

"I am not permitted to discuss your own Shinigami with you," Rem says, tersely.

L presses his thumb to his lips, thinking.

"Do you personally know of anyone else who is in hell?"

She stares at him hard.

"Yes," she replies, cautiously.

"How many people?"

"Just the one."

L rubs his neck.

"So people who are in hell can not immediately see each other or contact each other?"

"It's hell, L," she says, as if he's very simple. "The idea is that one suffers endlessly. I cannot reach Misa."

"Or Mark?"

"Or Mark," she agrees. "Hell is many different places. Separation is a part of that."

_I know that,_ L thinks.

"The one person you do know," he asks, because he has to ask. "Is their name Mihael Keehl?"

Rem appears to be thinking.

"I have never met anyone by that name," she says slowly. "Nor have I heard any of the others mention them."

As expected. The likelihood of any particular person being Mello had about twenty-five zeros between the decimal place and the number one.

But still, here is someone who has experienced hell first hand. There must be something she knows.

Surely.

"So those in hell are aware of where they are?"

"To my understanding, often they are not," Rem says. "Most humans are put into some sort of altered reality. Knowing that it were not real would detract from the impact."

"How do you know these things?" L asks. "How do you know about the hell of others?"

"I don't know!" she says, uncharacteristically frustrated. "It's part of my hell to know the fate of others, I suppose. She tells me things, sometimes."

"Who is she?" L probes. "What does she know?"

Rem blanches, which ought to be impossible.

"Do not ask me that," she commands. "One should never discuss the queen."

"The queen?"

Rae's mentioned the queen before. Offhandedly.

"She is simply an acquaintance of mine," Rem informs him. "I can give you no further information."

_How curious. A queen. Shinigami are so ...interesting._

"And your own redemption?" he asks, changing the topic. She's been useful to him, after all. It doesn't hurt to be kind.

Rem shoots him a withering look.

"I am over one hundred and fifty years old. My period for redemption would have ended a long time ago."

"I thought you said someone never knew when that period was?"

"Correct," Rem says. "But I am positive that I have been here too long. No, this is me. For good. I think you would say, one hundred percent certain."

_If that is true_, L says, feeling strangely mollified, _then the hell filter is every bit as vindictive and unfair as I want to believe._

"Do you know why you are in hell?" he queries.

"Because I murdered a lot of people, of course," she says, as if it's obvious.

_How does one judge that? _L wonders. _How does one judge who is the murderer? Light Yagami was my murderer, not you. You were a tool, nothing more. I do not blame you. I would be an idiot to blame you._

When people have strong emotions, they are both amazing and fragile, he notes. And useless. Mello's death had been a mildly helpful stepping stone in the Kira investigation. Anyone else could have done what he'd done. It wasn't _necessary._

It wasn't okay to sacrifice a mind like that, just because it was wrapped in a truckload of anger. Just because it could be easily done. Near should have known. If he'd really been like L, he would have known.

In any other situation, Mello would have won. He would never have been walled into becoming a... a thug. A pawn. He would never have raged hard enough and desperately enough to actually use the death note. He would have had life, and happiness, and Mail.

L's not certain that he's being entirely rational.

"Were you not sorry?" he asks, dragging his attention back to the conversation at hand.

"I don't remember. It was a long time ago," she murmurs.

L draws closer to her. She's been used. Like a weapon, like a plaything. Like Near used Mello, in the end. A disposable body. A means to an end. He can't stop drawing the comparison.

At least she got to throw away her life for someone she loved, and not someone she despised.

_At least there's nobody left behind grieving for her._

_Probably_. He's not actually certain, of course._  
_

"Rebecca Remira," he says softly, clearly. "You made mistakes. You always fell in love with those who were evil. Even here, in your own hell, you have not stopped."

She looks like she wants to slap him.

"You have no right to judge me, L!"

He knows that. But higher judgement has obviously failed her, and isn't it better to hear it from him than no-one at all?

_It is acceptable for any idiot to judge someone as innocent._

"Being a murderer is not the same as being in love with a murderer," he declares. "All your life, you have been manipulated. I do not believe that you deserve to be in hell."

Her eye widens, and she stares at him as if he is a monster, as if she has never seen him before. Her bony shoulders tremble.

"I knew someone like you once," L says, by way of explanation. "The man I asked you about before. Mihael. He's in hell, like you, only recently."

"He has a chance, then," she says, and she sounds like she's choking. "L. He has a chance."

"Yes," L says. "I know. He needs to take it. He is so very. Important."

They sit together, in silence, for a long time. Rem touches him on the shoulder.

"Does this mean you forgive Misa, L?"

L cups his chin.

"By my own principles, I suppose I must," he concedes. "Yes. She was not to blame."

Rem smiles at him, honestly smiles. Her whole face lights up, and for a moment she looks so much like the painting that L wonders how he'd ever doubted it was her.

"There is one more thing."

"There always is," he says, grinning.

"We have discussed many things today," she summarises. "I have said things I did not intend to reveal to you when I came here. However, something that has been brought up today that could be of implicit important to your own happiness. You need to deduce what is was, and arm yourself accordingly."

L raises an eyebrow at her.

"I see. No further hints?"

"That is all I can tell you."

"Then, thank you," L says softly. "Thank you."

* * *

When L comes out of his meeting, he looks even more disheveled than usual. Matsuda theorises that he's been having complicated conversations, one hand delicately holding the phone and the other casually wringing his hair into knots.

He loves watching L work, every movement calculated and intricate. He loves being part of the L squad in general.

He kind of loves L, actually. Not in a way that involves wanting to take clothes off - those feelings are reserved specifically and awkwardly for Wedy - but sort of in a way that Matsuda wants to work for him forever.

"What is it with you and handcuffs, anyway?" he asks cheerfully, when it occurs to him that L has probably realised he's staring.

"They stop people from doing incredibly stupid things," L says simply, but he wanders over and frees Matsuda's hand, anyway.

"Thanks!"

L goes over and gets back into his own chair without a word. He moves like a cat, all sinew and grace. Until he's meeting someone new, someone outside their little team. Then he scratches and stumbles and looks like a fool with his big blank panda eyes.

He's so ridiculously clever. One day, Matsuda wants to be just like him.

The thing is, he knows he could be so much more_ useful_ if only they'd trust him. If L just let him go off on his own, they'd see. He'd catch his own snipers if other people weren't around to get in his way. He knows he's capable.

They just don't ever give him a chance.

"Matsud...T?"

"You can just call me by my name," he says meekly. "I don't mind."

"You ought to mind," L says. "There may be death notes in this world. Your identity ought to be protected."

His blood runs cold.

"D-d-death notes?" Matsuda stammers. "No way. Nothing that evil could be in a place like this. This is supposed to be better than life, after all."

L looks at him with those flat grey eyes. Matsuda can never read his expression. He's an enigma, a mystery.

"Be that as it may," L says boredly, "your identity is still an important thing. Had you been a little more careful with it, we might not be in the present situation."

Matsuda flushes hotly.

_Why is everything always my fault?_

He just wants L to _like_ him, damnit.

* * *

"I've got something that might be useful," N tells them later that night. "I've been reading up on our snipers. Of the five recognised top gunsmen in the world, Jessica and the two men comprised only the bottom three."

"So either the first two were too expensive or too ethical," L says thoughtfully. "That's useful. We have both money and justice on our side. Well done, N."

"Casey Maddox, and Charlie Nastazik," she continues, without acknowledging his praise. "Canadian and Polish, respectively. Research suggests they're both military men. M's already found their contact details for me."

"Get in touch with both of them," L orders. "See if either party is willing to reconsider the offer from whoever-it-is, while acting as our agent."

"Right away," she says efficiently, and leaves.

L grabs a handful of boiled sweets from the bowl and tosses them one-by-one into his mouth. Matsuda is gaping at him. Again.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"What have you got on Aiber?" L asks wearily.

"I found something, actually," Matsuda says energetically. "It can't possibly have been him who sold my information on."

"Why not?"

"He's been dead for at least a year."

"Oh," L says. He feels as if he ought to have been aware of that. "He's died twice, then."

"Yes," Matsuda says sombrely, stretching his arms over his head. "L? What do you think happens when you die a second time?"

"You spend the rest of eternity naked, covered in barnacles, and tied to the underside of a tug boat," L says, absolutely seriously.

"What, really?"

"No, Matsuda. How could I possibly know that?"

"Well, because you're really clever, I guess," he replies, sounding moderately hurt. "Do you always have to make fun of me?"

"Perhaps I do," L says, considering. He does enjoy the diversion Matsuda brings. The other man scowls at the ground, kicks his feet, and doesn't look at L again.

L smiles. Grins a little, even. Matsuda is so…human.

"Enjoying yourself?" an unwelcome voice asks from right beside his ear.

_Yes, thank you_, L types, keeping his expression utterly polite. _And yourself?_

"Oh, I'm just fine," it says, with a toothy smile.

_You've been quiet lately._

"Oh, you've noticed? Goodness me, you _are _brilliant, aren't you?"

_Interesting_, L taps, deleting the previous sentences. _You used to pretend to be so dignified. You were never openly snide until I saw through your 'friendly' act. I suppose you're running out of tactics, Shinigami?_

The spell-check underlines the final word in angry red, which amuses L a little. He wonders if he ought to add it to their online dictionary, for completeness.

Sometimes, Rae petrifies him, with its bloodbath-red eyes and the sheer power it holds and the ferocity of its persuasion and the way it's always there, right behind him, unshakeable. Sometimes he forgets all of that, or disregards it, and the banter between them feels like little more than sibling rivalry.

He might not know all of the rules, but L's still smarter. He'll beat this thing. All he has to do is not use the note. He's got the easy job, really.

"I don't need tactics," Rae informs him snottily. "All I have to do…is wait."

_Wait for what?_

"Hm?" Oh, nothing. It shouldn't take long. A couple of days, by my calculations."

_What will happen in a couple of days?_

"You'll see," Rae says, with a feral smile.

L closes the document.

"Aww, what's wrong? Are you frightened?"

"I'm busy," L says, irritated with himself for being irritated.

"Uh, I didn't say anything," Matsuda says, maybe a little balefully.

L regards him for a moment.

"I know," he says, finally. "But you can, if you'd like. I wouldn't mind right now."

* * *

"Nastazik wants nothing to do with any of this," N reports back, that evenings. "She's got a newborn baby, and she just wants to be safe."

"I can understand that," R says pointedly. L's fairly certain he'd still dearly love to be safe and have a family.

Well, he can leave whenever he chooses. Any of them can.

"Maddox is, well, cagey," N adds, chewing her lip, an unconscious habit. "Casey Maddox clearly isn't his real name, he speaks through a voice filter, and he says he only wants to deal with L himself."

"How does he think he's going to know if he's dealing with the real me?"

"He wants to see your face," N clarifies.

"What will that prove?" L is dangling a spoon between the fingertip and thumb of one hand, and swinging it gently in the air. "I could show him any face. I could send any person."

"Apparently not," R says. "He told us he knows what you look like, and that he'll only help if he deals with you, alone."

L stops swinging, fascinated.

"He knows me. Or it's a less than clever ploy to get me to reveal myself, meaning that he's already been bought out by our present enemy."

"Can't I give them a name, already?" Matsuda asks petulantly.

"Go ahead."

"Uh….Eve."

"Eve? We've decided it's a woman?" R demands, incredulously.

"Well, no, but one, why do we always have to use men's names for unknown villains? That sounds sexist to me. And two, Eve stands for evil. Evil person, evil corporation, whatever it is."

"Ingenious," M says flatly. "How did you ever come up with that?"

"_Anyway_," N says sharply, "Maddox apparently has some idea of how careful L is. He's offered to speak on the phone, first. No voice filters. No one else involved."

It's a fairly reasonable request. It's highly unlikely L can be traced by the sound of his voice alone. Of course, if there are spies in or near the building, Eve might be hoping they'll be able to visualise whoever is talking on the phone and kill him.

Which is fine. He has no intention of leaving the windowless centre room he's been sharing with Matsuda. If anyone outside behaves strangely at the time of the conversation, they might finally have themselves someone to arrest.

In fact, it wouldn't hurt to put up a silhouette of a fake L having an obvious phone conversation right next to an open window at the same time. If anyone shoots, he'll know Maddox is a phoney. Or at the very least, bugged.

Yes. Perfect.

Of course, if Maddox is genuine, he's obviously hoping L will recognise him by the sound of his voice. Which means he's someone L has met at least once.

"L?" R asks gruffly. "What will we do? Maddox specifies he doesn't want any current or ex police officers involved with him, so I presume he's probably a criminal."

"We can plug Matsuda's ears," M suggests unhelpfully.

"It's fine," L tells all of them. "Set the phone conversation up for midday, tomorrow. Leave Maddox to me. Here's what I want you to do."

* * *

L breaks his insomniac marathon, and goes to bed at the same time as Matsuda.

"I never went to slumber parties when I was in school," the other man says as soon as they turn off the lights. "Mum was always worried about bed bugs."

"A fairly rational concern. Not only can bed bugs cause allergic reactions and skin rashes, they can also have alarming psychological ramifications."

"Please never ever remind me of my mother again," Matsuda says with distaste, and L chuckles, in spite of himself. He rolls onto his side and listens to the covers rustle over him. M is monitoring the camera feed, and he never sleeps. Matsuda should be safe. He's wearing five shirts, and a cotton pillowcase over his death note. Matsuda should be safe. He closes his eyes. He can hear crickets outside, a long way down.

He knows Rae is standing over him. The damned thing is always close by when he's sleeping, like it's trying to intimidate him when he's most vulnerable.

"L?"

"You're still awake?" L cracks one eye open and sure enough, the Shinigami is standing at the head of his bed, leaning over him menacingly.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You had better hope the answer is 'yes', because you just did," L points out sleepily.

"Oh...yeah. I guess."

A long pause stretches between them.

"What is it?" L prompts, because otherwise this could go on all night.

"Do you remember that time when you got really sick last year?"

"Sick?" He's never ill.

"Yeah, your sleep cycle got all screwed up and you couldn't sleep at all. Don't you remember?"

"I remember," L says, truthfully. It's not something he'll quickly forget. Above him, Rae snickers.

"What actually happened?"

L listens to the seconds tick by on his watch.

_One, two, three_.

Matsuda can't possibly suspect anything. No one suspects anything. If no one else does, _he_ certainly can't.

"It's a temporary psychological disorder, I believe," L explains. "A snowball effect. If someone who functions at a standing level of sleep deprivation starts to suddenly get even _less_ sleep, then -"

"I heard you first," Matsuda interrupts, nervously. "I...I went to your room because I could hear noises and I knew you weren't well. Then I went to get M because, well, he's better at locks than I am. But I heard the things you said. You were hallucinating gods of death. Talking to them. Begging them to stop. I don't know what. It was just. It was creepy."

L's breathing doesn't change. He doesn't know anything. There's still nothing L can't brush off as a psychological symptom.

Matsuda takes a deep breath and plows on.

"L...do you _know_ if there are death notes in this world?" he asks. "Or Shinigami? All the gods of death that we've ever met have been neutral. Why would you imagine an evil one?"

"Because I was hysterical," L says matter-of-factly.

He's feels slightly better seeing Rae regard Matsuda with a mix of disgust and uneasiness.

"What? How has the clown guessed this much? What have you told him, L? You've done something! I thought we agreed you weren't going to tell _anyone_."

Perversely, a very small part of L wants to tell someone else about the note. He wants the weight off his shoulders. He wants the security of someone else to reign him in if Rae ever...

If Rae ever beats him.

It's a zero point zero zero zero zero zero two percent chance. But he has no backup plan. No failsafe for stopping him from becoming the next Kira, if everything goes wrong.

L sometimes wishes he wouldn't have these sorts of revelations while he was trying to get a few hours of rest.

Does he trust Matsuda? Does he trust Matsuda that much? He needs someone who can act independently. Someone who'll steal the metaphorical plane without previous instruction.

Matsuda's good at shooting Kira.

_Why hasn't this occurred to me before? _

He keeps silent, wondering what Matsuda will say next.

"And I just...I mean, we're in heaven, right?"

"Not any version of heaven I've read about," L corrects. "Just the afterlife."

"Right. So, there could easily be gods and angels and ghosts and monsters -"

"And bears, oh my," Rae interjects.

"...and legendary creatures and god knows what here, and it would make perfect sense, right?"

"In theory, yes," L agrees. "However, the fact that we haven't seen any effects from any of the things you just mentioned probably means that if they do exist, they clearly don't interact with any human society very often."

"Kinda like Shinigami, then?"

"As far as frequency of encounters goes, yes, I imagine that they are like Shinigami."

"But the Shinigami realm must be in the first world, right?" Matsuda asks. "Or connected to the first world. Or do you think they can pass between the living and the dead?"

"Go on, L," Rae jeers. "Tell him."

"I don't know," L says immediately.

"Oh," Matsuda replies. "Yeah. I suppose that makes sense. I hope we never have to defeat another person with a death note, anyway. But at least this time we'd know the rules. I suppose it would be worse if a different sort of god dropped something for some human to abuse."

"We don't even know if there are different gods," L says. "Please go to sleep."

"Okay," the man replies comfortably. "I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a giant evil Shinigami following you around, that's all."

L's eyes open wide, and he slowly clenches one hand around a wad of bedsheet, mind racing. He sits up abruptly.

"Matsuda."

"Er, yes?"

"I wish to extract a promise from you."

The older man props his head up on one elbow, looking utterly serious, for once.

"Of course. I'll do anything for you."

"What are you doing?" Rae rasps. "What? What is this? You can't _tell_ him. L!"

It's admitting to a weakness in front of the Shinigami, but it's a weakness that Rae surely already knows exists, otherwise it wouldn't keep hanging around him and _trying_. And to admit to a weakness for the purpose of stoppering it altogether, surely that's no real confession at all.

It's a 'fuck you', in fact, as M would say.

_Fuck you, Rae_.

"If you ever have good reason to believe that I may be a Kira, I want you to shoot me in the heart," L says calmly. "Do you understand?"

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you. to everyone who's stuck with this monstrous and monstrously retarded story so far, thank you. I swear it will get better. (as far as events go, not as far as quality of writing goes. there will eventually be romance, and happiness, and stuff. there's just so much plot to get through before that can happen. I feel like L needs to be in a certain place, emotionally, before he could ever get with anyone else).

+ every time I write a new chapter, I have to go and read some fluffy M2 so I can deal with it. THEY WILL HAVE THEIR DAY, DAMMIT!


	11. Discovery

notes/warnings

+ not necessarily for this chapter, but from here on in, warning for character death/s.

* * *

**Discovery**

"_What?"_ Rae snarls.

"W-what?" Matsuda gasps.

"I am as intelligent, and probably both as selfish and child-like as Light was," L explains to him. "I very much doubt that I will ever be placed in a situation similiar to his, but I have to consider what would happen if someone ever decided to use another death note here, for the same purpose. It would be remiss of me to remove myself from that contingency plan simply because I believe that I am incapable of being corrupted."

He looks straight into Matsuda's eyes, something he's never really bothered to do before. They're dark brown, and a little wet, and so very human.

"I want you to be my failsafe," he pronounces. "Is that acceptable to you?"

"I can't believe you're even _suggesting_ this," the other man wails, pressing his face to the pillow.

"I'm not a fairy tale character, T," L says firmly. "I am human, capable of error."

"No," Matsuda says, and there's strength in his trembling voice. "No. No! You are L You will always be a force of good. I _look up_ to you. What's happened? What's made you say this to me now? Do you have a death note? L? L? _Is there a Shinigami in the room_?"

"Stop that nonsense," L chastises. "We were discussing possibility, not actuality. It is true that I am absolutely not Kira. I have no death note. There is no Shinigami. But I must account for all future possibilities."

It's so easy to lie. So easy, even when Rae's right there staring down at him. As a sleuth, he's never found honesty to be a particularly useful virtue, and L has disregarded it for most his life.

Justice is more important than the truth, after all.

"This is a part of what makes you so good, isn't it?" Matsuda sniffles. "The fact that you can suspect yourself."

"This needs to be our secret," L continues. "Just between the two of us. Do you understand?"

"Fine," Matsuda says, wiping at his eyes. "Fine. If you've asked me, then I'll do it. But... but _damn_ you for asking this of me. What if it happens? What if I have to k-kill you? How will I live with myself?"

"You make me feel very safe, Matsuda," L says, a rare note of warmth in his voice. And he's ready to curl up and try and get back to sleep.

"I do?"

"Yes. Goodnight."

Of course, that's not the end of it, either. Matsuda gets to his feet.

"Can I get in with you?" he asks, tremulously, childlike. The way L must have sounded when he asked the same question a year ago.

_An eye for an eye_.

"If you must," L says. "Just this once."

"Are you insane? Do you _want_ him to find out? What are you up to?" the Shinigami demands.

But it's okay. L knows Rae won't let Matsuda accidentally touch the note while he's asleep. He is, effectively, safe.

And he owes Matsuda this much, after all.

The other man curls up beside him, making the mattress dip so that L shifts too. Thankfully the bed is big enough that they don't touch. Matsuda doesn't say anything more, although L knows he's staring. There is nothing else to be said.

He sleeps, and pretends he can't hear the death god's sneer.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, _Lawliet_."

* * *

They set up the third surveillance room for the phone conversation at midday. N takes him aside and asks him if he's sure he knows what he's doing.

She's noticed, then. She's noticed that more and more people have connections to L. Of course, when he'd been alive, it had never particularly occurred to him to shield his identity from the dying.

"I just don't know if it's safe to trust this Maddox character," she finishes, watching him expectantly. "Sometimes, I don't honestly believe you're taking enough precautions."

L tilts his head.

_So now, three of my team have demonstrated an unprofessional attachment to me. This is getting dangerous._

Well, maybe it's time to nip that attachment in the bud.

"Then leave," he says bluntly. "If you're so concerned for your own safety."

She frowns at him.

"I'm not concerned for _my_ safety."

"Then you ought to be," he tells her, daintily taking a sugar cube from the bowl and pushing it into his mouth. "If you feel I am lax about my own security, then you must believe I am negligent with regards to your own."

She gapes at him.

"Why?"

"Because I'm the most important person here," L says diffidently. "I'm hardly going to sacrifice myself and not the rest of you. You ought to have worked that out by now."

"I...you..." she sputters. "You what? You. How can you_ say_ that?"

She's angry. As planned.

L stares at her.

"Not everything I do may make immediate sense," he says flatly. "But if you do not feel you have been compromised, then rest assured I am perfectly safe."

She clenches both hands into fists.

"You bastard," she breathes, a momentary lapse in control. And then. "Fine. Understood. M will be in shortly."

She leaves without so much as a glance back, and L smugly reaches for more sugar. She'll doubtlessly tell R, and probably Matsuda, too.

A mild dislike between employer and employee is best in this sort of situation.

"Clever," Rae admits. "So does this mean you want to strike out on your own again?"

"Not at all," L says. Matsuda is working at his computer in the room proper. No one should be able to hear him. "They are loyal people. This ought to be just a little push in the right direction. To keep things professional."

"Hm. And after you've only just confessed your little heart out to the idiot, too."

"If anything, contempt for me should strengthen his ability to shoot me and unknowingly thwart you," L informs it. "You ought to be complaining right now."

"Oh, I'm not worried," Rae says arrogantly. "Everything is just fine."

M shuffles into the room without so much as a greeting. L never has to worry about M. He's not sure if M would be particularly bothered if anything happened to him. He's seventy-five percent confident M doesn't care about anything in the world.

Except, of course, the obvious. Because apparently, according to Rem's most recent revelations, Mello might actually _be_ in this world.

And if he is, L _will_ find him. Hunt him down. Drag him back home.

"Oh, hi M," Matsuda says, sticking his head in the door, apparently having reached the end of his pitifully short attention span. "What's up?"

"Haven't you got work to do?" M asks blandly. "Or do we pay to you stand around looking gormless?"

"I've been _working_," Matsuda protests. "I've been monitoring the CCTV from the entrance and around this building."

M shrugs. He fiddles with some of the wires and presses a few buttons, double-checking the security of the connection.

"Are you using a normal-sounding voice filter, or none at all?" he asks L.

"None, thank you," L tells him. "Is the robot set up outside?"

"Right next to a window, and back-lit," M reports.

"A robot? Oh man, I want to see the robot."

"It's just cardboard with a few joints and some electronics to make it move like a normal silhouette," M says, rolling his eyes. "It's nothing special."

"Oh. Right."

M leaves when he's done. Matsuda sits down next to L, and grins broadly.

"Guess what?"

"Given the vast number of possible options generated by the nonspecific nature of your question, I could be guessing all day," L informs him. "Tell me what you want to tell me."

"Well, I got bored just staring at nothing, so I started to look up some of the older CCTV tapes from the time that Wedy and I were being stalked."

"And?"

"And just two hours before we encountered them, there's footage of them meeting up with another man in a bar in Paddington."

"I see. But I also notice you have not brought me a picture of this man."

"Well, no. I contacted Wedy first, to see if she recognised him."

L frowns, mostly for Matsuda's benefit.

"Wedy ahead of me?"

"I wanted to prove I could do something on my own," he says enthusiastically. "I'd like to make you feel even safer."

L feels a strange rush of warmth at that, and for a split second he is struck dumb, wanting to lean up against Matsuda and hang on. He shakes his head fiercely.

"All right. What happened?"

"Wedy said his name was Terry Bufu, a small-time car salesman. Arrested for numerous crimes and never convicted."

"We can have M hack into his financial records," L says. "He may be some sort of contact for Eve."

"Wait, there's more. I, um, took the liberty of searching for contacts myself."

L raises one eyebrow.

"You've been at that computer for approximately one hour. How could you possibly have found anything in that short space of time?"

"Well, I was only searching for certain names," Matsuda says awkwardly. "And look what I found. Three years ago, he had a business contract with Eiichi Takahashi."

L observes the older man carefully.

"You did a search for all the names of the executives of Yotsuba, I gather?"

"Well, yeah. I just. I think it might be them."

"You're not the only one to have those feelings," L informs him.

Matsuda shifts his weight uncomfortably.

"I'm being rash and jumping to conclusions again, aren't I?" he asks miserably.

"No," L says keenly. "You are progressing well. Thank you, Matsuda. Please go back to your research."

Matsuda lights up like the inside of Rae's chest and sort of twirls out of the room.

L checks his watch.

Thirteen minutes until midday.

* * *

L's already forty-one percent certain he knows who Maddox is.

"I'm ready to start tracing," M informs him through the intercom. "N and R are monitoring the robot at the window. We're all ready to go."

"I thought N was supposed to be contacting me," L asks calmly. There's no point in trying to sound surprised, any inflection will be lost on M.

"She says she would prefer not to speak to you right now," M informs him. "Not sure why."

_Exactly as planned_.

"All right. Tell everyone to stay in their positions."

He takes his finger off the intercom and glances at Matsuda. The man is happily working at his computer, his work ethic apparently having improved in leaps and bounds since L's offhanded compliment.

The phone rings; a high, shrill bleat. The display shows a number that matches the one they've been using to contact Casey.

"He's calling," L informs M. "Tell the others."

"Got it."

L takes the phone from the receiver, but does not speak. He waits.

So does Casey Maddox.

Over a minute of mutual silence drags past.

_Who throws down the gauntlet_? L thinks. _It all comes down to which of us speaks first_.

Tick, tick, tick.

It's so quiet. L listens to the faint hum of the traffic outside, and the uneven footsteps of the pigeons on the awnings. He peers at Matsuda, who has stopped typing and is now scribbling things down on a piece of paper. He's also casting sporadic grins at the one-way glass, apparently hoping L will be watching and see him.

L shakes his head indulgently. And then, feeling charitable, he speaks.

"Yes?"

The silence on the other end of the line goes on for another six seconds or so, just long enough to be awkward.

"L?"

L can't pick the voice of everyone he's ever met from just one syllable, but he's been expecting this.

"Soichiro."

"It_ is_ you," the man says gruffly. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't sure."

Something about their conversation has attracted L's Shinigami, who strides into the room and hangs over him.

"I hear you're the second-best gunsman in the world," L says conversationally. "I suppose congratulations are in order?"

It doesn't really surprise him. Soichiro has always been determined, intelligent and hard-working. With his demanding police career firmly behind him, it's only natural that he should channel his talents into some other aspect of his life.

"I have nothing to celebrate," the man says harshly. "I would like to request that we keep this conversation strictly to the business at hand. And...and don't expect me to apologise for the wrongdoings of any members of my family. It's not my place."

"Of course it isn't," L murmurs. "But if you truly wish to distance yourself from the past, why would you want to speak to me?"

"What else have I got left to believe in?" he asks, and he sounds exhausted. "I'm certainly not interested in helping yet another proxy of yourself. I've had well and truly enough of second Ls and fake Ls and new Ls. But if it's really _you_, I'll do what I can for you."

"You believe in me?" L questions. "But I failed you."

"You sure did," Rae says happily.

"I'm not surprised that you failed. I myself was such a stumbling block for you. I never should have insisted -"

"It's all right," L cuts him off. If Soichiro Yagami gets reflective and self-deprecating, the conversation might go on for hours. "It's not your fault. Listen, has anyone recently offered you money to kill people close to me?"

There's a pause. L fancies he can _hear_ the other man thinking, hear the cogs in his mind twist and grind. He's deciding how much he wants to say.

Clearly, L has taught him well.

"Yes. Or at least, I've been offered money to target someone who _could_ be close to you," is the cagey reply. "Obviously I don't know if they're actually affiliated with you. But if you really are L, then you know of them."

So Soichiro still doubts him. L knows where this is probably going, but he's not particularly happy about it.

"I see," he muses. "Then, would you consider agreeing to their contract in order to help us uncover their identity?" he asks.

Matsuda's Bufu-Takahashi link will not be enough to prosecute, however carefully researched. He knows that. They need Soichiro.

There's another pause.

"You know I'd rather not get involved with any of this, don't you?" he asks, finally. "I don't want anything to do with the police. At all."

"Why is that?"

"You have to ask?"

"Yes," L confirms.

"I don't think I could ever look a police officer in the eye again," Soichiro says bitterly. "After everything...after I produced a _mass murderer_, after-"

"Still not your fault," L interrupts politely. "You are not your son. Any current or past member of the police force would be a fool to think badly of you. And you were an excellent officer."

"No."

"No you weren't, or no, you are refusing to help us?"

"If you're going to play games, I can hang up right now."

"I'm being quite sincere."

He must know they'll be trying to track the call. He's likely to be using either a public or a communal phone. N said he was reported to be living on-base, so maybe it's a military phone.

L wonders idly how he wound up in the military in the first place. From 'chief of police' to 'grunt'. Hardly a sound career move.

"I don't believe you," Soichiro says, simply. "And to be blunt, before I agree to any accord with your group, I want to see you. Face to face. I want to know it's really you."

He's fallen, cut down to half the man he was before, L realises. He's fallen, just like Mail. Just like Rem, and Mello, and Misa, and maybe even Matsuda.

Everyone who ever crossed paths with Light - even briefly - is damaged.

Even L himself. A little too soft, a little too human, a little too frightened.

_But not frightened enough_, he thinks, eyeing the Shinigami.

L can put himself back together again. He's always been unusually fast to heal. Watari once theorised that that particular ability was the only thing protecting him from diabetes and heart disease.

L always told Watari that it wasn't about immunity, it was just biology. L had a strong body. He'd die when he was meant to die.

_Meant to die_.

It was Matsuda who'd explained to him about the Shinigami eyes. That everyone had a designated lifespan that could be cut short using a death note. That a human who traded half of their remaining years with a god of death could obtain the power to see the real name and lifespan of every other living person.

Such a fascinating ability. And one that Soichiro himself had, briefly, possessed.

L wonders if he still has that ability. It's difficult to say which traits are carried with someone when they die. Mail isn't full of bullet wounds, and R's heart works just fine. But L has some old scars on his feet that he definitely remembers obtaining while still alive. He knows one of them, at least, is from stubbing his toe on the sofa when he got into a fistfight with Light.

He'd rather not have kept that particular scar. He'd rather not remember quite so clearly.

He's getting sidetracked. If Soichiro has the eyes, he'll know L has a death note as soon as he sees L's face.

"You must understand that I would be concerned about such a meeting," L replies, voice neutral. "Obviously, if your loyalties are elsewhere, it would be the perfect trap for me."

"That's my offer, take it or leave it."

"You're in Canada," L says. "Do you expect me to leave the safety of my home to come and see you, given the present situation?"

"I was thinking of somewhere more...middle ground."

"Between England and Canada? Are you suggesting we meet in Iceland?"

"Not quite. Newfoundland. Terra Nova National Park."

"Much close to you than it is to me," L points out mildly.

"Five pm tomorrow. Take it or leave it."

L cocks his head, his gaze drawn to the shape of the man working furiously in the room outside.

L cannot leave Matsuda alone. Matsuda must stay inside the building to be safe. Soichiro is their only reliable option for bringing down Eve. Engaging Soichiro means L must leave the building. If Eve is not stopped, it is doubtful that Matsuda will always be protected just by being kept indoors.

Therefore, the very first statement must be rendered untrue. L doesn't like it, but he's not about to let _that_ cloud his better judgement.

"And I have your word that if I am truly L, you will help us?"

"Yes."

He trusts Matsuda, anyway. He decided that just last night. It must be so.

"Done," L says decisively. "See you tomorrow."

* * *

"You're leaving me?" Matsuda asks, somewhat gleefully. "Does this mean you finally recognise that I'm not going to do anything stupid?"

"It would seem that way," L says tiredly. He shouldn't be tired. He slept just last night. "I leave very early tomorrow morning. I expect you to keep yourself confined to this room and continue the research I've outlined for you. Any deviations from this plan need to be referred to me, first."

"I understand," Matsuda says effusively. "I won't let you down."

Rae makes a derogatory noise. The Shinigami seems to be uncharacteristically happy. L has been double-checking every decision he's made and every task he's undertaken, but he cannot detect any errors or misjudgements. Nothing in the near future ought to lead to his imminent demise.

Perhaps the death god has simply gone mad. L considers this thoughtfully. Possibly it has always been mad, if its eyes are any indication.

"Do you think Eve is going after anyone else?" Matsuda asks.

L wonders if anyone from Eve will recognise Soichiro as the old chief of police. If they're truly Yotsuba, then they shouldn't. If they aren't, then they might. He may need to disguise himself, or insist on remote contact only. Yes, that might be better. Yotsuba was prepared to hire Coil without seeing his face, after all. And L wants Eve to be Yotsuba, because then he knows exactly what he's dealing with.

But that doesn't make it so.

And besides, it's always possible that there's more than one big group or company involved in this. There's no doubt that plenty of individuals here have good reason to take revenge on L.

_Could there be some sort of collaboration_?

He's speculating without evidence. A useless and necessary part of the deductive process.

"Doubtlessly," L replies calmly. A woman was murdered in Munich last week. Drive-by shooting. Unknown killers. She had been a popular lingerie model who'd helped L with a high-profile case before.

The problem was, there was no _method_. Nothing to be _learned_. These people - Eve - they weren't doing anything clever. They weren't using a killer notebook or Shinigami eyes or burning secret messages into the ground. They were just shooting people. And when the hit-men were caught, they'd hire more.

It was vexing, to be wasting so much time on such a thuggish and simple-minded case. If Eve had targeted anyone else in the world, L would never have bothered to get involved.

L flexes his toes, and absently reaches for another slice of cake. It's the type Watari makes himself, filled with fresh fruit and cream. Matsuda goes back to his research, humming under his breath. He moves awkwardly, even when he's writing. His shoulder jerks every time he moves from one line to the next, and his writing is too flamboyant, his hand flies all over the page like a crab having a panic attack.

L watches him for a long time, and is disgusted to find himself thinking_ 'I'll only be gone for a day. Nothing is likely to happen in twenty-four hours.'_

There's a point zero two percent chance that something will happen while he's away. That's practically negligible, from a statistical perspective.

And even if it does, he's L.

He doesn't need _anyone._

_

* * *

_

Matsuda wakes up when L's leaving, but he pretends to still be asleep. L is standing beside his bed, regarding his pathetically small suitcase. Really, the guy is a superstar. He ought to at least own luggage that wasn't darned in five places and falling apart at the corners.

Privately, Matsuda thinks it kind of sucks for L, the way heaven is so similar to real life. The man did so much when he was alive - locked away so many criminals, kept so many people safe, made so many difficult decisions, brought so much _justice_ - that it was ridiculous and downright selfish of the world to expect him to keep doing it for the rest of forever. He should be placed on a throne, in a proper version of heaven, with angels and clouds and music and grapes. Or maybe grape-flavoured cake. And gorgeous women all around him. Or men. Or both. Matsuda's not sure which way L swings.

Or if L swings at all.

No, that's too sad to even think about. Surely he must have had someone. Somewhere. Once, at least.

Surely.

Anyway, Matsuda has done his part. L officially trusts him. _Trusts_ him! He is no longer a burden. He is an equal member of the team. Finally.

Matsuda grins and snuggles into his mattress. L is scratching his head and looking around the room, head completely still and eyes methodically scanning from one wall to the other.

And then he starts talking.

"Is that right?" he asks, barely a whisper, gaze coming to rest on a place about two metres from the ground and several metres to the left of Matsuda's bed.

"That's fascinating. No, really," he deadpans. "Do tell me again."

Matsuda feels his heart speed up.

_What...who is he talking to? What?_

_This is bizarre._

The pattern of L's speech isn't like his regular thoughtful monologue. He sounds like he's having an ordinary conversation with someone who simply isn't there.

"Or maybe you really _are_ just running out of options," L continues, a hint of satisfaction in his usually-emotionless voice.

_Okay, okay, calm down, think. You're a rational adult, starting this morning. L appears to be talking to himself. Maybe he's...oh, maybe he's still asleep. Maybe he's overslept and now he's sleepwalking and acting out a conversation in his dreams._

_Yeah. _

_That must be it._

_Unless he's actually gone mad._

Matsuda mentally reprimands himself. L is like, a god, or something. He can't have gone _mad_, he's a force of nature. Unbreakable. Even Light only beat him because he was using something celestial that L couldn't possibly predict.

"Do you honestly think I'd consider that even for a moment?" L asks the air softly, amused. "Even now, my suspicions of Yotsuba are barely fifty-two percent."

Matsuda wonders if what L is saying in his dreams is true. He suspects Yotsuba a lot, then. Matsuda's already convinced, but Naomi is always telling him off for jumping to conclusions. Just like R is always telling him off for acting irrationally. And M is always telling him off for breathing.

But if L trusts him, that's enough. Who cares what anyone else thinks.

L is silent for a while, and Matsuda's thoughts drift to Wedy. His heart skips a little, she makes him silly. Or more silly than usual, anyway. She hasn't contacted him in a few days, though. Maybe she's gotten sick of him. Like everyone else. He's never been sure whether she's serious, or whether he's just a toy for her. Something to pass the time. Maybe. Probably.

Maybe if L told her he trusted Matsuda, she'd think better of him.

"I am completely aware that I know the names and faces of all of the executives," L whispers. "But, as I'm certain I've told you before, I will not use the note."

Matsuda's blood runs cold.

_He's dreaming. He's still dreaming. He's got to be dreaming._

Shinigami are just over two metres tall. If there really were a Shinigami in the room, L's looking at exactly the right place to be talking to it's face.

And he mentioned a note. Names and faces. Matsuda had speculated he'd had a note.

_That's enough, _ he tells himself sternly. _I trust L. L is my mentor. L is my hero. He doesn't have a death note, and he's not talking to a Shinigami. He's just dreaming, and reliving the Kira case._

He wishes his heart would get the message, and stop thumping so violently. He clings to the pillowcase, like it'll protect him from any evil in the room.

There is no evil in the room. There is no evil in the room. There is no evil in the room.

In a minute, someone will come for L and Matsuda will see him wake up with a jolt, and then he'll know.

Watari raps on the door not five minutes later.

"Your car is ready, L."

L turns to him, gracefully, without so much as a twitch.

"I am ready, Watari."

Matsuda watches them leave, eyes blown wide open, fist opening and closing over the flimsy cloth, unable to concentrate, unable to think.

_He wasn't asleep._

_No._

_No!  
_

_No, no, no, no, no!_

He hits his head against the end of the bed, panicked and terrified. L has a death note. L has a Shinigami. And no-one else knows about it.

Matsuda stares at the ceiling, trembling and feeling absolutely, completely alone.

_What am I supposed to do now?_

_

* * *

_tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you.

+ next chapter up as soon as I finish it, but it might be a week or so. my apologies.


	12. Toll

notes/warnings

+ still mostly rubbish

+ possible overuse of the word 'damnit'.

* * *

**Toll**

The plane ride is smooth. They have a tail wind, and the view is mostly ocean. Watari is a good pilot. The seat is plush under L's bare feet, and the ice-cream is plentiful.

But he still feels uneasy.

Rae lounges across several chairs, like the lord it probably is. Or lady, maybe. L watches the Shinigami leisurely. It seems to be made entirely of bone and fire, but it moves with sinew, like a cat. It's theoretically more aesthetically pleasing than either Ryuk or Rem, if one is prepared to disregard the eyes.

L is absolutely not prepared to disregard the eyes. They remind him of something straight out of his worst nightmares. The sort he used to have when he was seven, and he'd only just…

Never mind that now.

"I have a question," he says, and then presses the back of the spoon to his lips. It's pleasantly cold.

"Go on," Rae says magnanimously.

"Why have you not offered me the deal?"

Rae tilts its head at him, a gesture so much like his own that he is momentarily disturbed.

_I spend far too much of my life with this damned thing_.

"What deal would that be, Lawliet?"

"Feigning stupidity? I'd expect a little more maturity from the heir to the king," L says with dignity.

Rae pushes itself into a sitting position, crossing its inhumanly long legs in front of the chair.

"They say one is often brought down to the level of one's company," Rae points out. "Do you think I enjoy spending every hour tailing an oversized child with an oversized ego and an overinflated reputation."

"Touche," L says. "And congratulations on neatly avoiding the question at hand."

Rae stretches its arms, and L is sure he can hear the pseudo-bones _click_ into place as it does.

"You are referring to the Shinigami eye deal," it states.

_Never stupid, are you?_ L thinks grimly.

"Correct," he agrees, observing the death god carefully. "I might consider it, you know. Not for the purpose of the note, but because it would be useful as a detective to immediately know the true name of every person I see."

He'd also see every person's intended date of death. Which would mean he'd know if anyone started killing with a death note again, because people would be dying before their life spans indicated. It could be...advantageous

"Just as I predicted, then. I knew you would want to use that power for your own fulfilment, and not for the greater good," Rae says, sounding smug. "Hm. So you'd genuinely sacrifice half of your remaining life span for my eyes, would you?"

_My eyes_?

No, he does not want Rae's eyes. He knows the death god is merely using a colloquialism; humans don't actually obtain the physical eyes, just the visual power. All the same, the thought makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He's convinced that Rae's are not just Shinigami eyes. They're _insane_ Shinigami eyes. And he wants as little to do with them as possible.

But the _ability_. That is the thing. A name to a face.

"I might, if you ask nicely," L says, and he's completely aware that he's being petty and immature. Rae brings out the worst in him, and that irritates him. He needs to be more detached.

He's been thinking that about a lot of things, lately.

"Well, I'm not," Rae says cheerfully. "Sorry, L. The eyes are not a part of our deal."

L scratches his chin. A predicted outcome, but not the one he'd deemed most likely.

"I thought you'd have given anything to shorten my life," L says. "I understand our relationship is strictly professional, but you're not exactly _fond_ of me."

"I can't say I'm surprised that your deductive abilities have failed you yet again," the Shinigami jeers. "But I'm sure you understand that I'm here under special circumstances. Giving you the eyes is not a part of the conditions of this arrangement."

"It's an assessment, really, isn't it?" L asks. "You are being assessed as to the strength of your character. And perhaps…yes, perhaps I am, too."

It all comes down to which of them is stronger. L's will against Rae's will. Human versus death god. Hardly fair.

Either L destroys his own principles, or Rae will never sit on that throne.

"There is also another reason," the death god adds. "But I'm not quite ready to tell you that, yet. I think I'll savour it for another few years or so."

It laughs again, a high, cold giggle.

L shrugs and goes back to his ice-cream. It is chocolate-chip, after all.

* * *

When Matsuda gets up at seven, he's had just over an hour's worth of sleep. He staggers to the coffee machine, and is briefly grateful that none of the others have come to talk to him yet.

He's not sure what he wants to say, but he _is_ sure that if any of them turn up right now, without warning, he'll probably tell them everything whether he ought to or not.

It's easier to think rationally with the sun permeating the room and some distance between himself and last night. There's still a chance L was either hallucinating or sleepwalking (and talking). True, it's unlikely that L takes mind-altering drugs, which means that the latter is the only real conceivable alternative.

_And he didn't exactly seem to wake up when Watari came in_, Matsuda thinks, and then scrubs at his hair.

_Shut up shut up shut up._

If L _had _been asleep, it's not surprising that his nightmare involved death notes and Shinigami. The Kira case haunts L like it does the rest of them, Matsuda is certain of that. Light probably contributes at least one-fifth of the bags under L's eyes on any given night, at least according to M's calculations.

M. M will absolutely go off the rails if he even _suspects_ L has a death note. Heck, he's mentally unstable at the best of times. In fact, after M had died and arrived here, L hadn't been able to find him for about a month. He was eventually located trying to blow up the Tracking Library in Washington, as if that would somehow help. L had to use considerable influence just to get him out of jail.

Of course, Matsuda hadn't been around for that part, but he'd heard the story from Raye.

And Raye, for his own part, is somewhat distrustful of L. And Naomi has already requested not to be told anything that she would need to keep secret from her husband.

No, Matsuda absolutely cannot talk to any of the others without discussing it with L first. Otherwise, the results might be disastrous.

Fine then. It's decided.

Matsuda takes a long swig of his coffee, feeling marginally better. L has asked him to stay on CCTV monitoring, but he figures it won't hurt to do a little more research on Bufu, first. Just in case he can find something useful. He sits down at his computer and cracks his knuckles. Mail taught him the basics of hacking soon after he'd joined the team. If a website has low security, Matsuda can usually garner some information from it.

Yotsuba will have ridiculously high security, of course, but Bufu himself might not. He's practically a nobody, according to Wedy. So it's worth a shot. Matsuda opens up his explorer and begins working.

Hacking is a mentally-demanding task, and he loses himself in the codes and lists of names. He finds Bufu's facebook page, and trawls through his contacts. He comes across a copy of a recent plane ticket in his name. He locates a news article about Bufu's youngest daughter, music captain of her school.

Before Matsuda realises it, four hours have passed, and both Naomi and Raye are standing in the doorway, smiling at him.

"Hi," he says brightly. "Sorry I didn't see you there."

"That's all right," N says. "Just checking to make sure you're okay, stuck in here by yourself."

"I'm doing fine," he says, honestly.

"L tells me he's prepared to trust you now," Raye says sternly. "I really hope he's not wrong, Touta."

Matsuda hangs his head a little. Why can't they _all_ just trust him?

"You don't need to speak to me that way. I _am_ an adult, you know," he says glumly.

"I know," Naomi says gently.

"Sometimes you even act like it," Raye adds, and then there's the distinctive rustle of elbow being discretely driven into ribs.

"So, what do you guys think of Maddox?" Matsuda asks. "Did L mention who he really is?"

"L hasn't mentioned anything to us," Naomi says with a little sigh.

"But then, why would he?" Raye adds, sounding strangely bitter. And maybe a little winded. "_We're_ just not as important as him."

"Huh?"

"It's nothing," Naomi tells him. "Yesterday L decided to remind us that he's an egotistical and self-centred _prima donna_. I guess we'd forgotten."

Raye balls his hands into fists. Whatever L said, it had apparently upset him. A lot.

"I still can't believe he spoke to you that -"

"Baby, enough," Naomi commands. "Look, Matsuda, we know nothing about Maddox except that L trusts him enough to go and meet him. The only thing we can do about it is what we've always done, which is rely on L's better judgement."

"I think we'll be fine," Matsuda says meekly. "L almost _never_ misjudges people."

"I like the way you emphasise 'never' and not 'almost'," Raye says. "If he had misjudged a little _less_ frequently, we might all still be alive."

"Now that's _really_ enough," Naomi says, crossly. "Could you guys possibly _fight_ a little less frequently? I feel like I have four kids, instead of none."

"We could change that," Raye says, the anger in his voice diminishing with every syllable.

"Not yet," Naomi replies, with conviction.

Matsuda feels vaguely uncomfortable. He's never had much of an inside view of the Penber's marriage, and he would prefer to keep it that way.

Then again, at least they're actually together. Which is better than Mail's situation, who - as L once put it - is in love with someone who quite possibly has never even looked at him twice.

And who is, you know, in hell. Which sucks even more.

"Earth to T," Naomi waves a hand in his face.

"Sorry, I spaced out," Matsuda says hurriedly, and Raye snorts in disgust.

"That's okay, you're entitled to relax every so often," Naomi tells him. "Anyway, we mostly dropped by to let you know we're going out for a while."

"Oh?"

"Yes, L's sending us to a bar in Paddington, to chase down a possible contact of your snipers. I believe this is based off information you discovered, actually."

"Yes, it is," Matsuda replies. "So you're trying to locate Bufu?"

"That's right," Naomi tells him. "It's quite a good lead. You should be proud of it."

"Thanks," Matsuda says dutifully.

Inwardly, however, he's aggravated. It's _his_ lead. _He_ should be the one to follow it up. They can't incapacitate him like this and then accuse him of being useless. It's not fair.

He wants to bring Bufu down. He can do it. L thinks he can do it, he's sure.

"We'll be back this evening," Raye adds. "Try to stay out of trouble."

Matsuda grins winningly and salutes him.

"I will," he promises.

And he means it.

* * *

Matsuda's good mood fades rapidly. He's bored. He's sick of being stuck in the same damn room all day. Everybody _else_ gets to leave. Everybody _else_ gets to go on missions and collect evidence and spy on suspects. Well, except Mail, but he _chooses_ not to leave the building.

But Matsuda, he's _forced_ to stay.

_Look at all the evidence I've gathered so far_, he thinks glumly, tapping his forehead rhythmically against the desk. _If they just let me handle this on my own, I'm sure I could solve it quickly_.

_And didn't L say he trusts me? Then why is he leaving me here to stare at the walls? I should be out there, making him feel safer._

And oh god, isn't that the biggest compliment anyone has ever paid him? He makes _L_ feel secure. Matsuda kind of wants to marry him, just so he can keep doing that every day of his life, and finally feel _useful_.

_After all, it's not like Wedy considers me to be particularly useful, _he thinks miserably.

Anyway, that wouldn't be so good, because L is a guy, and Matsuda is pretty sure he's not romantically attracted to guys. A platonic marriage, then. He's sure such a thing exists. The internet says so, after all.

Matsuda checks the clock again. Four forty-two. He's been playing on social networking sites for hours, but he still has a whole lot more time to kill before L gets back and he can finally ask him about the Shinigami.

Matsuda's phone rings, vibrating across the polished wooden desk until it drops into his lap and bounces on the floor. He snatches it up, checks the caller ID, and answers it quickly.

"Wedy!"

"Hey babe. You going stir crazy yet?"

"Oh, no, not me. I'm doing fine," he says, in what he hopes is a manly and attractive tone of voice. He can feel his cheeks heating up already. Wedy makes him feel about five times more clunky and stupid than anyone else in the world.

She also makes him really, really happy.

She chuckles at him, and his knees give a little.

"Glad to hear it. Guess who I've just spotted."

Right to the point. No small talk, no flirting. Matsuda sighs.

"Who?"

"Terry Bufu himself," she says sweetly. "He's with an accountant across the road as we speak."

"Wow," Matsuda says, jealously. "You ought to follow him, then. I'm sure L would appreciate your help."

She sounds like she's in a cafe. He can hear the clink of crockery in the background, and the traffic noises are too quiet for her to be standing out on the street. Man, he misses being outside.

"Of course," she says, sounding offended, and Matsuda flinches. "I don't need your permission or your guidance. I _am_ interested in your company, however. He's been in there a long time, and he's not showing any signs of leaving soon. It's getting boring."

"My c-company?" he stammers.

She wants to see him? Again?

"Well, you're the one who made the connection to Bufu," she continues. "I thought you might wanna be involved."

He can't.

"I...I can't leave this place," Matsuda informs her sadly. "It's not safe. After what happened last time..."

"Well, it's up to you," she drawls. "But I assure you, there are no bugs or taps on or around the building you're staying in, and nobody seems to be spying on it, either."

"How do you know that?" he asks. "You've been staying local?"

"Yeah, I wanted to make sure you were safe," she says, offhandedly.

"You don't trust me either," Matsuda translates miserably. "Damnit!"

"Because two adults can't possibly look out for each other without one of them distrusting the other?" she asks sardonically. "Really. I'm sure you're capable. _Because_ you're currently indisposed, I've been checking up on your neighbourhood every day - including this morning - and I assure you it's clean. Meaning that whoever was after you has given up."

Wedy's smart. Brilliant, in ways he could never hope to be. And she's convinced he's safe.

But L's also smart. Probably smarter. And he's convinced Matsuda is in danger.

Or maybe the Shinigami is making him paranoid.

The thing is, no-one actually has the right to tell him to stay put. He's not a prisoner to this room. L's his boss, not his parent. He can fire Matsuda, if he wants to, but he can't _make_ him stay. And wasn't he hired to help _solve_ crime, and not just run and hide from the first sign of trouble?

_I need to go_, Matsuda realises, suddenly. _I need to do this. I need to keep being the person L can trust. I need to stand up to people like Eve._

L wants him to stay. Matsuda promised he'd stay.

Unless...unless this is a test. If L trusts Matsuda to make judgement calls on L's life, surely he'd trust him with his own.

Yes.

This must be a test.

"I wouldn't ask you if I thought you'd be in danger," Wedy adds. "I don't particularly want to have to shoot more thugs, just because they've threatened you."

"Where is this accountant?" Matsuda asks.

"About seven blocks away from your place," Wedy says. "The Clayton's mall along Starling Street. It should take you five minutes by car."

Naomi and Raye are busy. Watari and L are out of the country. No-one will ever know. Of course, he'll have to tell them if he obtains any vital information, but he doubts they'll be too upset if that's the case.

"I'll see you in ten," Matsuda says.

And for once in his life, he's absolutely certain that he's doing the right thing.

* * *

They abandon the plane about a mile from Terra Nova National Park, and drive the rest of the way. Their car is custom-made. It looks like an ordinary jeep, but it's completely encased in near-invisible bullet-proof glass. No sense in being careless.

There's also glass between the driver's seat and the passenger's seat, which gives L a little privacy. He rests his head against the cushion and stares at the scenery. It's pretty - everything is mostly green at this time of year, and the lakes are crystal clear and still - but he's travelled too much, and he no longer finds nature particularly inspiring.

"You're going to an awful lot of effort to meet this guy," Rae comments. "Is he really that special?"

"He is fairly extraordinary," L concedes. "And a very good man."

Rae apparently can't think of anything disparaging or unpleasant to say, because it doesn't respond.

About half an hour ago, Soichiro sent them a message detailing exactly where he'd be; the northmost point of the biggest lake. It's another fifteen minutes drive away.

"Well," Rae says suddenly, "this has been _fascinating_, but I'm getting heartily sick of your company. I've got better shows to see."

And with that, the Shinigami puts its feet down and gets out of the speeding car.

L cranes his neck so he can stare out of the back windscreen, watching it grow steadily smaller in the distance.

"What?" he asks no one in particular, a little dumbfounded.

Rae's never _left_ him, except for scheduled meetings with the king. He'd prefer it gone, of course, but he'd like to know _why_.

_Better shows to see? What does that mean, Shinigami? Where are you going?_

_It's not as if it can hurt anyone_, he reminds himself. Shinigami can't touch or speak to any human who hasn't seen their death note, and L has Rae's only note strapped securely to his chest.

But still, it clearly knows something he doesn't. Or suspects something he doesn't. Either way, he's a little unnerved by its sudden disappearance.

But there's nothing he can do about that.

When they finally arrive, L instructs Watari to park behind a small clump of trees, out of sight. He pulls on a hooded jacket. Sometimes his deductive powers have to take a back-seat to the need to stay incognito and still appear to be an ordinary person. He has a gun hidden under his shirt, and Watari has at least two in his jacket.

There's a figure standing under a small picnic shelter, facing away from them, staring out onto the lake.

"If it _is_ him," L tells Watari, "you are to go back to the car and wait for me, do you understand?"

"Yes, L."

They approach the man together. L picks up every little detail. The build is right, but the hair is more grey than L remembers. He also has sunglasses on, and he's dressed too casually. L is mollified by this; it would have been more suspicious if this man looked exactly the way Yagami used to, before he died.

Death changes people. Finding out your son is a serial killer probably changes people, too.

L steps out in front of the man, who finally seems to see him. He pulls off his glasses, and his eyes underneath are tired and blank, reminiscent of Mail's. L gives him a tiny smile and signals to Watari.

"L," Soichiro says gruffly. "It's been a long time."

* * *

The short drive to the cafe is unremarkable. No one shoots at him. No one jumps up from behind the back seats. No mysterious gas starts leaking into the car.

By the time Matsuda arrives, he's fairly convinced that all of L's precautions have been pointless. Wedy is right. They're moved on.

She's sitting in a cushy-looking booth on the left hand side of the cafe. She has a black wig on today, big earrings, and a scarf over part of her head. She's smoking something long, thin, and exotic-looking. Matsuda suddenly feels woefully inadequate in his work shirt and tie.

Then Wedy gives him a tiny wave, and he hurries over to her. It's amazing to be out in the fresh air again, and he feels satisfied and renewed. The cafe is small and well-lit, the walls painted white and light blue. The other patrons seem to be mostly middle-aged women, each bearing more jewellery on one hand than Matsuda could ever afford in his life.

_Not much chance of getting shot here_, he thinks, comfortably. These women probably can't even scratch their nose without some help.

Wedy has selected the side of the booth that gives her the best view of Horace & Clatts Accounting, across the street. He guesses that is where Bufu was last seen. He goes to the opposite seat, but she gestures for him to sit next to her.

"There's only once entrance to that place," she says softly, pulling him down. "He'll have to leave by the front door."

"Oh," Matsuda says. "Uh...hi."

She kisses him on the cheek. It might be just for show, so that no-one thinks it's strange that they're sitting that way, but it makes him blindingly happy for a second. She smells amazing.

"Hi yourself. If you want to order something, go ahead, but we'll have to leave as soon as Bufu does, obviously."

"How long has he been in there?"

"Going half an hour, now. He didn't arrive by car, so he should be pretty easy to follow. Just stick with me."

"Man, if I learn how to tail people from _you_, one day I might be even better than Naomi and Raye," he says, excitedly.

"I thought you weren't supposed to say their names."

"Oh, right. Yeah, I'm not. I forget, though," he says, flustered. "And I don't really _like_ referring to people as just letters. It dehumanises them, somehow."

Wedy takes a sip of her coffee. It seems to be the colour and consistency of tar.

"Why do you think he does it?"

Matsuda feels his eyebrows shoot up into his fringe.

"You think he'd prefer not to think of us as people?" he chokes. What a horrible thought.

But... he _can_ imagine L thinking like that. The man is practically a machine.

Then again, L's been calling him by name the past few days. What does that mean? That L _likes_ him?

A waitress appears beside him. She's tiny and cute, probably Japanese, and if Matsuda were here with anyone else, he'd probably hit on her.

"Can I get you anything, sir?"

"Oh, yes. I'll have a banana and mango smoothie, with extra yoghurt," he decides.

"And we'll pay now," Wedy adds. "So that we can leave at our leisure."

"Of course," the girl smiles. Matsuda hands her his credit card and tells her to charge for both drinks.

"Such a gentleman," Wedy says, when the waitress leaves. "What are you doing hanging around a girl like me, huh?"

"Chasing bad guys," Matsuda replies, with a smile.

* * *

"So you are finally convinced that I am myself?" L asks. He's no stranger to meaningful silence, but he has better things to do than stand here staring at a lake.

"Yes," Soichiro murmurs. "It's...it's good to see you. I'm so used to the fact that you're dead, it's still a bit of a shock to see you walking around again."

"Well, I am still dead," L points out. "As are you."

"I honestly believed in him, you know. I honestly did," he says, barely a whisper, hanging his head.

"I imagine such is the role of a father," L tells him impatiently. "Listen. There are certain conditions I need you to stipulate when you agree to this contract."

Soichiro doesn't answer, so he continues.

"You need to insist on remote contact only. If they require a meeting in-person, I'll send you instructions to allow you to most completely disguise yourself."

"In case they recognise me?"

"Yes."

"You really do think of everything, don't you?"

_What a silly thing to say_, L thinks. _The need to disguise oneself is not so abstract that only a detective would consider it_.

"Of course, you'll need to move to London in order to appear to be spying on him, that will be unavoidable."

Soichiro raises one eyebrow.

"So Matsuda really _is_ working for you?"

"Yes," L says calmly. "But that information is strictly classified. You are not to reveal that to anybody, including your employers, of course."

"Of course. You insult me, Ryuuzaki."

"It's just L, now," L reminds him. "We'll give you an apartment in London - although all official documentation will state that you bought it yourself - and there will be taps placed on the phone, which will be your only point of contact for your employers. When speaking to them, I want you to be compliant and interested. Once they assign you your first task, we'll take it from there."

"There is one thing I know already," Soichiro says. "They are suspicious that Matsuda seems to be travelling with the same group of people, but are unable to identify the other individuals, as of yet."

L touches his lips.

"Interesting. They're further along than I expected."

He knows Eve followed them from the United States back to London, of course, but they'd all travelled separately, and he'd presumed they'd simply been tailing Matsuda. As far as he knows, they can't have pinpointed the location of their London base, so the others should be safe.

Even so, perhaps he needs to increase the security level. Yes.

"When is Eve likely to contact you next?" he asks.

"Eve?"

"Matsuda named them."

The older man attempts a smile, and it looks like his face might crumble from the effort.

"I miss him."

"I'm not surprised," L says.

"They've been calling me every other day, offering increasing amounts of money," Soichiro says. "It shouldn't be more than forty-eight hours til they call again."

"Excellent," L says. "That is all I have to say, for now. I'll email you more detailed instructions when I arrive back in London."

"Wait," Soichiro says. "There's something I want you to see.

For a moment, he reminds L of Rem. He roots through his pockets.

"I had it with me when I arrived here. I don't know if you'll want to see it, but there' no-one else I can show it to."

He holds it out. It's a sheet of A4 paper, grubby and very old, folded into quarters. L takes it delicately and shakes it open.

Inside is a drawing from someone who obviously lacks both skill and anatomical perception. And a knowledge of the number of arms any one person ought to have. A child.

_'My famly'_ reads the spastic-looking black scrawl across the top of the page. There are three people in the picture. Or at least, he presumes they're people. They may be brown lollipops with clothes on. There's one in a dress, with a scribble of dark hair, and a fat smiling blob cradled in her sticklike arms. There's another beside her, taller than the rest, with a moustache so exaggerated it takes up most of his face. The last is barely half the height of the first, holding a tennis racquet - or possibly a tea strainer - and sporting a mop of brown hair.

L regards Soichiro carefully. He's not sure what he's supposed to do with the picture.

"All children, I'm told, draw pictures of close relatives," he says, bewildered. "Most look very much like this."

"He was five."

L has just enough social understanding to resist telling Soichiro he's wasting time.

"I'm sorry?" he says, instead.

"He was just a child."

All mass murderers start out as children. L still doesn't see the significance.

Soichiro scrubs at his head with both hands.

"But he drew us. That means he must have loved us at some point, right?"

L thinks he might be crying.

"I don't know," he answers, honestly. There's little to be gained from lying.

"I just. I was so _proud_ of him. He was ambidextrous until he was eight. Do you think he's in hell?"

"You haven't checked the register?" L asks, surprised. "It's in Washington, you know. You could go and look."

"I don't want to know," Soichiro mutters. "I don't want to know that he's suffering."

Light's name is definitely registered as being in hell, but perhaps L shouldn't tell him that. There's also no point telling him about redemption, because he's absolutely confident Light is purely evil, and therefore, will never leave hell.

And thank god for that.

L looks at the picture in his hand again. Something small and damaging tugs at the corner of his memory. A long time ago. When he was still alive. His old home. A fridge, with a built-in ice machine, automatic door, the works.

_What about the fridge?_

And then he remembers.

Watari used to send him pictures that the orphans drew. He used to have one taped to that same fridge. A disturbing looking man with a huge grin and spiky black hair, wearing something vaguely blue and white, holding a spear (or a large arrow). In front of him was a very large lizard, with little crosses instead of eyes.

_'L sleys a draGon_,' the text read, in a script that was actually fairly neat and legible.

L remembers thinking that it was such a bizarre thing to draw. Dragons were mythical creatures, after all, and he was a detective who dealt solely with reality. Why would he slay a dragon?

It wasn't until much later that he'd finally understood what it meant. A metaphorical dragon. All murderer, perhaps, or a drug lord. Every villain L had ever brought to justice.

L slays the dragon. L always wins.

Such a childish notion.

He hadn't known the name of the child who'd drawn the picture, but Watari had told him the boy was originally from Russia. In one corner, in the same neat handwriting, had been the letters 'MK'.

L folds the paper closed again, perhaps with a little more force than is entirely warranted. Why doesn't he have Mello's picture with him? Mail got the crucifix. Why didn't _L_ get anything?

Now he's being irrational. All over a picture Light drew. Even locked away in hell, the man still causes trouble for L.

"Here," he says, handing it back to Soichiro. "Thank you for showing me. I really should go."

"Yes," Soichiro says weakly. "I'll contact you when I hear from Eve."

He takes the picture back and places it gently back in his pocket.

"You have my word that I will not reveal to any member of my team your true identity," L adds. "I hope we hear from you soon."

"Understood. And thank you."

L shuffles back to the car. The grass under his feet is uncomfortably sharp, and he just wants to get back to base so he can start work again.

He glances back at Soichiro. He's sitting with his head in his hands, shaking.

_Light never deserved you_, L thinks. _Not even for a moment. Never_.

_If only you could understand that._

_

* * *

_

Adam Creagh isn't anyone particularly important. In fact, in his entire life, he's _never_ been particularly important. Middle of his class at school, dropped out of a series of traineeships in his late teens, and finally became a less-than-stellar hitman who generally earns a weekly wage akin to a chip-shop employee. Average. Boring. Unremarkable.

But this, this is different. This isn't his usual thing. There's a fuckload of money riding on this particular job, and even he's not stupid enough to screw it up.

He gets his coffee to go. The target and the brunette woman are staring out of the window, clearly watching something outside, but they'll leave eventually. And when they do, he needs to be ready.

He buys a bag of peanuts on a whim. They're disgustingly salty and perfect.

The doll is good-looking, tall and confident. Nice ass. She keeps making small gestures in the direction of the Horace and Clatts Accounting building across the road. He thinks they might be tailing someone in there. The target is supposedly ex-police, although Adam isn't sure how anyone so bumbling and incompetent could possibly have ever been a copper.

The girl, though. The girl will make things hard. He knows she's scanning the room behind her designer sunglasses. She obviously suspects an ambush. He'll have to be careful.

He can't fuck this up. So much money. He's gonna buy himself a mansion, and a pool full of whiskey, and a heck of a lot of sex.

A bald man comes out of the accountant's building, and the target and his girlfriend are immediately on their feet. Adam grips his coffee, and checks his guns are still in place.

Time to go.

He lets them get about half a block away before he starts following. He's got plenty of range on his gun, but he can't have them spotting him and getting away. He's lucky they were in his part of town at all. He could scarcely believe it when he'd gotten the call, not fifteen minutes ago, telling him to move out.

He doesn't understand a lot about the system, but apparently the big guys –whoever they are – had tapped all of the eftpos and automatic teller machines around London.

_Stupid fucker shouldn't have used his card_, he thinks, smugly.

He wonders who could possibly warrant such outlandish expense just to get close to them, but he doesn't dwell on it for too long. Not his place. Clearly this black-haired idiot is part of their greater plan, and that's all he needs to know.

They're definitely following baldy. Adam wonders if he's connected to the big guys. He wouldn't put it past them to be using someone as a lure.

Baldy takes a left, into a less-used sidestreet, apparently unaware of the little procession trailing behind him. Adam smirks to himself. There's almost no-one around down here. Perfect. He reaches for his gun.

And then the stupid fucking woman turns around and looks _right_ at him.

"Can we help you, sir?" she asks coldly. Her hand closes protectively around that of her companion.

Adam blinks, pretending to have seen them for the first time. He slides his pistol into his palm. It's a tiny little thing, some new model they're making in Japan, or somewhere foreign like that. It's slightly smaller than a matchbox, completely hidden by his fist.

"You following this guy too?" he grunts. It's not the best line in the world, but it's all he can come up with. He's not _good_ at this stuff, damnit.

"You're following him too?" the target asks, wide-eyed. He looks like he's barely out of his teens, and for a moment, Adam feels sorry for the guy.

"Don't talk to him," the woman says sharply. "You. Put your hands where I can see them."

He can see she's reaching into the pocket of her jeans.

Fuck, no time left. Baldy's not out of the picture, so he's going to have to hope that guy is on his side, and not about to call the cops.

"He owes me money," Adam says, as amiably as he can manage.

He doesn't move his arm from where it's resting by his side; he just lines up the barrel with her head. The target is standing close enough that he'll only have to readjust by a few degrees afterwards.

Two seconds.

His finger tugs on the trigger at the same time as he notes the realisation on her face. Too slow, lady.

_Bang bang._

Adam gets her twice in the head. Adjust.

_Bang bang_.

Adam gets him square in the chest.

_Bang_.

One more for good fucking luck. There's a lot of money riding on this, after all.

_Target eliminated_.

He's running before they even hit the ground.

* * *

"Wedy!" Matsuda yells, panicked and frightened.

That man just _shot_ her. She…there's blood pouring out of her head. She's leaning up against the filthy brick wall, screaming.

He needs to get up and go over to her, comfort her, bandage her head with his shirt. He needs to call her an ambulance at the very least.

But he can't move. He's on his knees in an alleyway and Wedy might be _dying_ and he can't…fucking…move.

He really is pathet….path….something.

His chest hurts like there's a knife stuck between his ribs. Like maybe there actually is another Kira who's just prescribed him a heart attack.

Now, of all times, when he _needs_ to live, because he needs to help whats-her-name. God he loves her. Blood is trickling through her fingers, and her voice hurts his ears. He presses the heel of one hand to his chest and comes away slippery and red.

He stares down.

The ground is red. Covered in red. Running out of him like bathwater.

He falls forward because he can't stop himself. The world is going grey and shimmery around the edges. He thinks someone might have approached Wedy, but he isn't sure.

He needs to get up. He can't feel his hands. Or his….those other things. Or his lungs.

_No_, he thinks vaguely, but he's not sure what exactly he means by that. Everything hurts. He's supposed to talk to L about a Shinisomething. Wedy is hurt. The world is fading.

_No, no, no._

There's something else, too. Something tall staring down at him, right in front of his face, fading rapidly. A skeleton monster with nightmare eyes and wings made of steel.

It's laughing, and he doesn't know why.

And then there is nothing.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you.

+ was not intending to have so much platonic matsuda/L in this fic. it just writes itself, I guess. :D

+ sab10067 - eighty-seven percent is a lot. wow.


	13. Rage

notes/warnings

+ swearing. lots of swearing.

* * *

**Rage**

It's quiet without Rae around. Ridiculously quiet. There's nothing to listen to except the hum of the car and the swish-and-crunch of his own chewing. Not that his white chocolate mousse requires an _awful_ lot of mastication, but the sound echoes around inside his skull regardless.

L swallows delicately and cocks his head.

The glass is both bulletproof and soundproof. He cannot hear the crack of the leaves, or the grit of dirt caught under the tyres. He cannot hear the call of the birds in the trees. Just the car. And the bells.

A wedding, maybe. Or a christening. Or...

Way out here, in the middle of nowhere. This is a national park. There aren't any churches within one hundred miles of this place.

Why can he hear bells?

He presses the button that lowers the partition dividing the front and the back of the car. It's _too _quiet. He's imaging things.

"So, how did it go?" Watari asks dutifully.

"As expected," L says, touching his lips. "He has agreed to help us. The next step is obtaining reliable evidence."

Only then will it be safe for Matsuda to leave the base. And it could take another fortnight or so before Eve is disbanded, destroyed, or arrested. L hopes Matsuda can stay put for such a long period of time. Now is not the time to be stealing planes.

Matsuda's judgement of what constitutes a good idea is - and always has been - terribly hit-and-miss. And the odds of him succeeding only ever seem to improve when someone else is in a dire situation. Under such circumstances, Matsuda almost never fails.

He's reliable in that way.

And so, L trusts him with big secrets, and not with small ones. It's a strange relationship, but one L has come to take a large amount of comfort in. Matsuda will shoot him if he ever snaps.

He'll be okay.

His phone rings. He picks it up with two fingers and examines the screen. M. They must have found something.

"Yes?" he asks softly.

Fifty seconds later, the phone falls from his hand and drops uselessly onto the vinyl. L buries his head in his hands, and the scream of the bells slowly rips the world apart.

* * *

Raye Penber stares at his wife. She's driving, because he can't stop his hands from shaking. She's always been better in a crisis.

"M can't be sure it's definitely him," he says weakly. "It could be... they could have shot someone else by mistake. Until we get down there and identif...ide...ident..."

"M has already seen a recording of the shooting from CCTV," Naomi tells him. Her voice is soft and gentle, beautifully sad. "He's unlikely to have been wrong."

According to the preliminary police report, the assailant has already been arrested. Bufu is happy to stand as a witness, meaning that either his connection with Yotsuba is tenuous, or they really _aren't_ the group that's behind all this.

So following Bufu had been useless. Pointless.

Definitely not worth dying over.

"Do you think Wedy's dead?" he asks. It's an important question. Pivotal. Two people were shot. The paramedics pronounced one dead, and took the other to hospital with critical injuries.

M couldn't tell them who was who. That's why they're here. To find out.

His wife shoots him a pitying look and pulls over. Raye stares blindly at the little cafe with its bustling patrons.

_It seems so...normal. No one even cares_.

"This place," he says, darkly. "Why was it so _important_ to come to this place today?"

He bangs his fist on the hood of the car. Naomi takes his hand.

"Don't draw attention to yourself now," she warns. "If you need to have an outburst, you should wait here. We need to be just ordinary people. Not detectives, not police, not colleagues. I'm Matsuda's sister. That's all."

Matsuda's sister is a real person, but by they'll be long gone before she shows up to confuse the issue. It's safer if they can keep there real identities a secret. The fewer people who know who they are, the better.

Raye scrubs at his face with one hand.

"It's all right," he croaks. "I can handle it."

Naomi clings to his arm as they approach the alleyway, mostly for show. She's handling it better than he is, he knows. The alley is disgusting, paint peeling off the buildings, and mud all over the street. It's been raining, and the clouds overhead are thick and dark grey. There are people in police uniforms taking samples and snapping pictures. As they draw closer to the fenced-off area, Raye can see a thick coating of blood covering part of the bitumen.

_Someone was murdered here_, he thinks, and he feels sick. Naomi says something to one of the policemen, and flashes her driver's licence. It's a fake one, of course. It presently reads _Akane Matsuda_.

There's a body bag lying a few feet away, and it's clearly not empty. And it's just sitting there. On the ground. Like it's nothing. Like it's a sack of garbage, or potatoes.

He never had time for Matsuda. He barely said a single kind word. He had always been impatient, always angry, often derogatory.

_Please let it be Wedy in that bag_, he thinks viciously. _Please_.

No one in their little group was supposed to _die_. That was never part of the plan. They are all brilliant, each and every one of them. There is no Kira here. They should win every case easily.

This should never have happened.

The officer finishes talking to Naomi, and she releases her grip on Raye's arm so she can follow him to the body.

He's a fucking FBI agent. This shouldn't _affect_ him so much. But Matsuda was..._is_ such a child. So young. So stupid, but so much potential.

_What happens when someone dies here? Is that it? __Surely it can't just be world after world after world. __Do the dead just rot in the ground? Do they automatically go to hell?  
_

_Please let it be Wedy_.

The officer unzips the bag. It's just black plastic, a glorified bin liner. He's still talking, or at least his mouth is moving. Naomi leans over, and then jumps back, her hand cupped over her mouth like she might be sick. The policeman pats her shoulder awkwardly, as if that's any fucking use at all.

And then he knows.

He knows by the way she doesn't look at him.

He knows it isn't Wedy.

* * *

L arrives back at base; Naomi sees the car pull into the garage. He will already know the news. M would have called him first, as soon as he found out what had happened.

She knows L cared for Matsuda. More than he cares for any of the rest of them, even.

Maybe...if L had been a woman..

No, that's an unreasonable line of thought. And totally unhelpful. Right now, she needs to step up to the plate. She knows she's the one amongst them who copes best with grief.

Right now, she needs to be L. At least for a little while.

Watari stands in the rain, holding the passenger door open, for a good five minutes. L does not emerge from the car. Naomi frowns.

_This is bad_.

Eventually, Watari picks him up and carries him - _carries him -_ to the door, bridal style. L flops around like a ragdoll, apparently immobilised by the enormity of what has happened. It's what he does when things go wrong. It's what he did before Kira killed him, too. He gave up. He surrendered and let himself fall.

Naomi draws the blinds. It's not something the others need to see.

Raye is sitting at his desk, head inclined, clutching at his hair with both hands. His shoulders are shaking. M is sitting cross-legged on the floor, calmly smoking. Naomi doesn't know whether he's completely unaffected by recent events, or whether he's just so filled with grief already that Matsuda's passing makes no difference to his behaviour.

Watari eventually comes into the room, alone, and Naomi knows better than to ask. She doesn't_ need_ to ask, anyway. She knows. She's his unofficial deputy. She knows.

She sits with her husband for a little while, but he's not in the mood for comfort, and she's glad of that. She feels spread too thin as it is, like she's expected to hold it together when everyone else crumbles.

She calls the hospital. Wedy is critical, not stable. They can't say for sure she'll ever regain consciousness, even if they can get her through the danger period.

The man who shot her - and killed Matsuda - is called Adam Creagh. The police have him in custody. She's already made preliminary arrangements to have him transferred to them for questioning. In a few days. After the funeral.

After the funeral.

_How does one say goodbye to someone like Matsuda_, she wonders. In the past - whenever their little group was required to briefly split up - he always used to wave, or tap his fingers against his head in a childish salute and grin and say _see you later. _Or, more often than not, _isn't this exciting, I can't wait! _Because Matsuda always thought even the tiniest, easiest, most basic missions were enthralling. He just loved the job.

Loved. Past tense. Everything is past tense now.

_Where are you now, Touta?_ she wonders.

The rain pelts out of the sky, great torrents of water slapping the ground. It's been long enough. Naomi excuses herself, touches the back of Raye's neck as she passes, and heads outside, into the hall. The elevator is both finger-print locked and password protected. No one can use it except them. She takes it all the way to the top floor. It's just a storage area, one giant room filled with boxes and maintenance equipment. No one lives up here. She heads to one corner, unlocks the hatch that opens to the outside world, and clambers up the fire escape.

The rain is nearly unbearable, like ice-cold needles tumbling from the sky. She's getting too old to be shimmying up a pole like a schoolgirl. She almost slips twice before she finally gets her hands on the rapidly-cooling roof tiles and hoists herself up.

She finds what she expects to find not more than three feet away, standing hunched and drenched in the downpour.

"L," she says softly.

He makes no move to respond. He gives no indication that he even knows she's there, he simply stares into the distance. There's a church in his line of sight, Naomi notes. It's the one M attends every Sunday.

_What is it with geniuses and ridiculous emotional attachments to churches_, she thinks irritably, tugging her jacket closer to her body out of habit. It's already soaked through.

"You should come inside now," she says, with as much authority as she can muster.

L remains silent, but his gaze shifts from the scenery to his feet, and he slowly presses both hands to the sides of his head.

Naomi takes a few wobbly steps towards him. The roof is uneven, old-style and pointed in the middle. There are no safety rails; it isn't meant to be walked upon. She kicks off her high heels carefully. The last thing anyone needs right now is another fatality.

"It's been long enough," she continues. "You should come in for a little while and get dried. You can come back out later, if you need to. I doubt it's going to stop raining any time soon."

Still no reply.

Gritting her teeth, and throwing out her arms for balance, she awkwardly edges towards him until they're standing side-by-side.

"L," she says gently, pushing her irritation aside. "L. Can you hear me?"

He glances at her, briefly. His eyes are dead. Flat, glassy, doll-like, and dead. She's never seen him this bad before.

He drops his head again, staring straight down. His arms fall limply back to his sides.

"Why did you come?" he asks hoarsely.

She thinks that much should be obvious by now, unless he really _hasn't_ been listening. She had assumed he'd just been ignoring her.

"It's wet," she says simply. "You need to come inside."

L does not answer immediately. The rain is starting to pour off Naomi's head in rivets and streak down her face. She's shaking, almost vibrating, in response to the chill.

_Come on, answer me, damn you._

"But why did you come," he asks a second time, "to see me?"

Naomi pushes at her fringe, now well and truly annoyed.

"Because _you're_ standing out here in the rain," she says briskly. "And I've come to take you back inside. Standing out here is both dangerous and unecessary. You could fall. You could be shot at. Come on."

She holds out her hand, offering it to him. L rarely accepts touches from anyone, but he's maybe a little bit more human than he used to be when he was alive.

And everyone needs comfort sometimes.

His eyes move from the rooftop to her palm, scanning intently as if it's a clue in a new case. She fights down a momentary urge to shout at him.

He can be so... _inconsiderate_ sometimes.

"Not now," he murmurs, finally. "I didn't mean now. I meant, all those years ago, why did you come to me?"

She knows exactly what he's asking. In the beginning, when everything was new, and everything was possible, why did she want to work with him?

He's doubting himself, she realises, with sudden clarity. He's doubting his own goddamned judgement. He's their only hope, and he's _doubting_.

_What kind of an idiot...?_

_Everyone wants to work with you. You're L!_

Naomi forces herself to breathe deeply. He gets like this. She knows he gets like this. He's barely more than a child, emotionally. It's just a part of him.

But it's usually losing, not death, that affects him so badly. He's not nursing wounded pride today. He's not frightened for his own life. He's _grieving_, and that's not something that L has ever done before.

_More human than I thought, maybe_.

She has a brief, panicked premonition of L becoming like M, an empty shell, broken in every possible way, absolutely beyond all recovery and repair. _But_, she tells herself firmly, _L is stronger than M. And besides, he was never in love with Matsuda._

_As far as I know, anyway_.

"How did this happen?" L asks, his voice suddenly sharp and clear, demanding. "How did this _happen_?"

"It was an accident," she says, honestly. She's been telling Raye the exact same thing for most of the day. They all _know_ what happened and how it happened. She wishes they'd stop asking her to reaffirm.

"No one was here," he enunciates. "I knew Mail would never look out for Matsuda, and yet I left and sent both you and Raye away from base. Had he been forced to stay here, he would still be alive."

_Alive_.

"It was an _accident_," Naomi emphasises. "In the end, Matsuda made his own decisions. He chose to leave. He chose to take that risk. You cannot blame yourself."

"Myself?" L asks, and he sounds like he's choking. "Myself? I _trusted_ him. If not for that, he would still be here, breathing, and talking, and giving criminals stupid names like 'Arcy' and 'Eve'."

He crouches down so suddenly that he appears to be falling, and Naomi lunges forward to catch him and hangs there, her hands hovering in mid-air.

"So, what?" she probes. "It would have been best to just treat Matsuda like a baby for the rest of his natural second life?"

L turns to her once more.

"Evidently," he breathes. "Because as it happens, the rest of his natural life has ended. Because I trusted him. Because he could not be trusted. Because I should have _known_."

Naomi touches him then, finally, her fingertips connecting with his shoulder. He's surprisingly warm, she can feel heat radiating up from under his sodden shirt. The shirt itself is nearly transparent, and she can see his painfully thin chest rising and falling rapidly.

He's so small. He looks so fragile.

_I'm sorry_, she thinks, and she's not sure why. _I'm so sorry_.

"I was selfish," L explains. "I wanted to be safe. That's why I trusted him. Because he made me feel..."

He trails off, and she thinks maybe his lower lip quivers a little. She doesn't want to know how Matsuda made him feel. Of course, being L, that sentence feasibly could have ended with 'infuriated', 'superior', 'uneasy', or 'hungry'. But she's terrified that that last word was intended to be 'happy'. And really, she doesn't want to know.

"At least I'm alone right now," L whispers, which makes no sense at all. "I'm glad to be alone."

"You're not alone," she says bluntly. "I'm here, L."

"Oh," he says, as if seeing her for the first time. "Yes. You're very wet."

"We should go inside," she insists, tugging on his shirt.

L doesn't budge.

"At least Matsuda will be dry, in...in that box," L says miserably. "He once asked me what happens when we die here. I said I didn't know. Maybe this is all anyone gets. One second chance. And I threw his away."

He's talking too much. L never talks about things like this. She needs to get him back to the others, back to reality, away from this isolated little world of despair he's created for himself up here.

"I was so selfish, Naomi," he says, and she hates hearing him call her by name. Hates that he's so far gone he doesn't even value the system _he _created to keep them all secret and safe.

"Everything I did was for me," he adds. "Even protecting him. It was all for me. I'm no better than...I'm no better than Light."

Naomi does the only thing she can think of. She lets go of L's shirt and slaps him right across the face.

He's nothing like Light, and he knows that.

He _must_ know that.

* * *

The funeral service is a small, state-run affair. Only Matsuda's real family - one sister and his stepfather - are allowed to attend, alongside a few old colleagues.

L refuses to let any of his team members leave the building, but he sends Watari to place a visual tap on the church, so that the others can observe from the safety of their own base.

That had been Naomi's idea. She said the act of watching the funeral might help to give them closure. L isn't sure what exactly 'closure' is meant to entail, but it sounds suspiciously like 'forgetting about Matsuda and moving on with their lives'.

He does not want to forget the man who shot Kira. He does not want to forget the man he trusted to stop Rae.

He does not _want_ to.

But he allows it, all the same. On the screen, a priest is laying his hands ceremoniously on the coffin. L wonders what good _that_ is going to do. Matsuda is certainly not going to wake up and try and push the lid off, no matter how much L might want him to. The action just seems pointless.

But then, everything seems pointless.

Naomi and Raye are leaning on each other, positioned right in front of the screen. Mail is sitting on the desk in the far right corner. L is standing dead in the centre of the room, next to his crockery-laden coffee table, feet apart and head hung.

He doesn't want tea. He doesn't want sugar. He hasn't eaten a thing for the past three days. No appetite. His brain is running on nothing.

_I failed you_, he thinks, miserably. _I failed you again, Matsuda._

_Nothing can ever happen to you. _

_But it did. And it's my fault_.

L loathes feeling helpless. In the past, he has always prevented himself from becoming excessively close with any other human being. Life is fragile. Seeking to protect any one life will ultimately fail.

_Not this soon. It didn't have to fail so soon._

Rae looms behind him. It returned to his side sometime last night, during the seventy-two minutes of sleep he'd involuntarily indulged in. The Shinigami has been insufferable, repeatedly pointing out all the ways Matsuda could have _lived_ if only he hadn't been so _stupid_. Oh, and crowing about how Matsuda's murder was mostly L's fault for not using the note to execute Bufu and all of the known members of Yotsuba.

And now, right now, right here, the god of death is laughing. That high, cold, awful giggle that makes L want to tear out his own hair at the best of times.

It's been laughing since the funeral started. Laughing. _Laughing_.

L tries to ignore it.

On the screen, he sees Matsuda's sister wipe away a few tears. She's a tall girl with floppy black hair and dark eyes. He can see the family resemblance. She's moderately pretty, and she has an engagement ring on her finger, but no wedding band. Her dignified sniffles rapidly turn into harsh sobs, and she clutches at her white handkerchief tightly.

L recalls Matsuda mentioning her once. Akane. Clever, beautiful, talented Akane. Pride of both of his parents. Never called. Never remembered his birthday even once.

Neither did L, but L was _here_ and _with him_. They worked together. This woman barely knew Matsuda. L knows her tears are mostly for show. He doesn't understand why she showed up at all. Maybe she thinks she stands to inherit something from her brother?

_Note to self, remind Watari to make sure the trust fund is secured so that errant relatives cannot access it_.

Fake tears at his funeral. Touta Matsuda deserves much better. So much better.

Raye Penber is crying. L supposes that's worth something.

And Rae keeps on giggling.

L can't block out the sound, no matter what he does. He clamps his hands over his ears, stuffing his fingers into the canals as deeply as he can. Naomi glances at him strangely, but doesn't speak. She's mostly focused on the screen.

L has never cared much for funerals. There's alive, and there's dead. Matsuda was dead the second that bullet penetrated through his pericardium. Having a ceremony about it three days later is irrelevant. Meaning nothing. Signifying nothing. Here lies Touta Matsuda. Slighter more stupid and ten times more human than an average man.

"We have all seen the hand of god once," the clergyman warbles on-screen. "May our Lord guide you safely through this death, too."

_What god? _ L thinks, accusingly._ Where is his hand? _

_I am the world's greatest detective, and I've never found even a trace of this god._

_But if you've seen him, priest, then maybe you can ask him what good reason he could possibly have for letting Matsuda die. And then punch him for me. For Mello._

L shakes his head. His inner monologue is starting to sound disturbingly like Mail. He's never felt like this about anything before. He's never been bereaved. Not ever.

Not since he was six years old, almost seven, and she...and the Shyster...

It was raining that day, too.

_No. None of that_. He's blocked that out. Buried in the past. Evaporated. Gone

Like Matsuda.

The room is moving under him, swinging from side to side. Vibrating, he's certain, with the force of Rae's laughter. The sound is tearing through L's mind, horrible, evil, the worst thing he's ever heard.

_Are you laughing at Matsuda?_ he thinks, angrily. _Do you think it's funny, because you never liked him and now he's dead._

_And you knew he was going to die, you bastard. You knew! You would have seen it right there, hovering over his head. That's why you left, isn't it? You wanted to watch him die. Did you laugh at him then, Shinigami? Did you laugh in his face when he was bleeding, and the life was draining out of him?_

L clenches his fists, still pressed against his ears. All he wants is silence. Raye has buried his face in Naomi's shoulder. Mail is reaching for another cigarette. The priest is sprinkling dirt on the coffin, for some stupidly arbitrary reason.

Matsuda isn't doing anything. Matsuda will never do anything again. The empty space in the room. The second empty space in the room.

_Mello and Matsuda._

Rae floats gently over the floor until it's right in front of L, obscuring his view of the screen and Matsuda in a box and the idiot, idiot clergyman. The god of death moves jerkily, puppetlike and spastic, laughing too hard to stay upright.

"Oh, come on," it says to him, still snickering. "This is funny. He practically _walked_ into it. Stupid clown."

It's such a tiny, pathetic little insult, but it hits L like a fist. Rage pulses through his nerves, sudden and urgent, exploding inside him. He reaches for the table and seizes the teapot - an expensive, delicate thing with gold on the handle - and throws it right at Rae's cackling face.

It goes right through the Shinigami - of _course_ it does - and shatters against the television with a sickening crash. Cracking the screen. Killing the picture.

"Shut _up_," L snaps, so loudly his throat hurts. "I told you to shut up."

It takes him a moment to realise he's _yelling_. The others are staring at him. He's breathing hard, almost gasping. His mind is not his own, poisoned and resentful, focused solely on Rae.

Who laughs harder.

L is trembling. He's furious with himself.

"L?" Naomi ventures cautiously. "What? We...look, we're all bothered by that priest and his stupid platitudes. But there was _no need_ for you to do that. Couldn't you have just switched it off?"

"I was _watching_ that," Raye adds, sounding as if L has brutally murdered someone, instead of breaking an appliance. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Leave him alone," Mail says darkly. "Don't you _dare_ tell him how to grieve."

Raye mutters something about emotionally unstable geniuses that he probably thinks no-one else can hear.

"Did you honestly think that was going to work?" Rae asks gleefully, practically in hysterics. "First Matsuda dying. Now _you're_ falling to pieces. This is the most entertaining week of my life."

Without even truly thinking about it, L reaches a decision.

"Watari," he says softly. "Please reconnect the picture to another screen."

And then he turns on his bare heel, and leaves.

He ignores Naomi's questioning stare, Raye's scowl, Mail's indifference. He strides out of the claustrophobic room. Away from the clergyman and his false god. Away from Matsuda's box. Away from _closure_.

There's something he needs to do.

He'll probably fail, but he needs to _try_. Right now. Because if he succeeds, it will be worth giving up every single one of his principles.

He arrives in his own bedroom and locks the door. He reaches under his shirt. The action itself seems to summon the Shinigami, who appears through the wall and stares at him expectantly, still smiling.

"Are you finally getting rid of Yotsuba?" it asks.

"It's like you always implied," L says tersely. "What's the good of having something like this if I can't get rid of evil? And right now, there's a significant amount of evil in the world. It's time I did something about it."

He sets the notebook on his bed, open at the first page.

Rae's grin widens.

"Yesss," it says softly, right by his ear. "Use it. That's what it's for. My gift to you."

L takes a pen from his pocket and clicks it into position.

He knows the names and faces of all the old executives of Yotsuba. He knows the name and face of the man who shot Matsuda. He knows a heck of a lot of bad people, after all.

This is crazy. It's a _death note_. He swore he'd never use it on anyone or anything, no matter what.

L touches the first sheet of paper with his fingertips. It's thin and cream-coloured. It feels like an ordinary notebook, practically weightless.

He's never felt this all-consuming wrath before. Matsuda is dead. Someone ought to pay for that.

It's _his_ death note, after all.

"Come on," Rae goads.

_All right_, L thinks, fiercely, blindly. He cannot stop this pounding that drives him. He cannot combat the anger that controls him.

Or maybe he doesn't want to.

L presses his pen to the paper, scrawling out the three damning letters without remorse.

'_RAE'._

_

* * *

_tbc

_

* * *

_

a/n:

+ given the structure of this little universe, I think it's safe to say that Matsuda is not necessarily gone for good.

+ this chapter was one of those horribly awkward sections that doesn't have enough plot to be a chapter on its own, but is too big to be put with anything else. stuff will happen soon, I promise!

+ thank you. your comments make me so happy. :)


	14. Machine

notes/warnings

+ mentions of sex (nothing graphic).

+ swearing, swearing, swearing. everyone loves the f-word.

+ mention of torture.

+ random slashing of minor characters for no good reason. namikawa/midou. yeah.

* * *

**Machine**

Rae looks at the death note, looks at L, and bursts into a fresh wave of hysterics.

"And y-you…you thought…th-th-_that_ was….g-going to _work_?" it asks, howling with laughter.

"I thought it was worth a shot," L says grimly. But it _has_ worked, in a way. The momentary satisfaction of possibly killing Rae has done much to combat his anger, and he feels his rationality come trickling back into his system.

He is L. Even grief-stricken and enraged, he did not attempt to take the life of any other human being.

"So," Rae says, still gasping. "I can't believe it. The great L is actually evil."

"Because I tried to kill you?" L asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Of course," Rae says haughtily.

"Yes," L says. "If that makes me evil, then I must be evil."

He's never claimed to be a good person. All he's ever claimed to be is himself. And he is still that, even…

Even without Matsuda.

His colleague. His back-up plan. His friend.

Fifty percent.

He pulls the window open and sits down beside it, knees drawn up to his chin, rain spattering his face.

He's still not sure how on earth he's meant to deal with this.

* * *

L plays with the handcuffs, snapping them open and shut. He still imagines them fastened securely around Matsuda's wrist and the table leg. Tethering the man to here and now. To life. To L. To safety.

It was such a small thing to do, so physically easy to release Matsuda from the shackles. The turn of a key. The slip of a lock. L wishes, absurdly, that he could go back in time and slap his own hand away.

Released too early. He keeps making the same mistake over and over again. This time, his mistake has cost someone else their life.

He swivels around on his chair absent-mindedly. He ought to get back to work. He probably ought to eat something, to.

He also ought to have assumed Matsuda couldn't be trusted.

Raye knocks briefly on the wall and then steps into the room.

"I've got news, L," he says, and his voice is rough and gravelly. He hasn't recovered either. L thinks maybe he isn't sleeping at night.

"Yes?" he asks, without looking up. He flips the key again, and watches the cuff slide open with a satisfying _clack_.

"Someone else has been shot."

L flinches a little at the words.

_Someone else? Who are they targeting now? Wasn't Matsuda enough?_

_No_, he remembers._ They need me to show myself. This is going to go on until I either stop them, or show myself._

"Who was it?"

"Marnie Woodford," Raye tells him shakily. "She was the girl-"

"We saved in Japan last year," L finishes. "I'm aware of that, thank you."

"There's more. They left her body in front of the police station with a note stuck to it. I have a photograph of that note here."

Raye holds out a piece of paper. L takes it with two fingers and examines it carefully.

_Detective L. Your people are suffering. If you wish to stop this, please reveal your face on international news. Please note: you have four days before the next one_.

"So," L breathes, "they're finally making their demands."

Four days until the next one. Their third kill.

Four days will not be enough time.

He can't have another death on his conscience. Not another Matsuda. Not again. And he knows Eve is aware that Matsuda had companions. The next victim could be Raye, or Naomi.

Or Mail.

_No_, L thinks.

Then he has no option. He has to...he has to reveal himself. If he organises all the major networks and police squads, he should be able to...

He should be...

_What are you doing, you stupid, stupid loser_?

L jolts. His inner Near voice cuts sharply through the fog that's been surrounding him for the past eight days.

_You don't want to throw yourself away over something like this, _it chides. _ That would be completely illogical. Think!__  
_

What is he doing?

What is he _thinking?_

He's... he's L. The world-renowned fucking detective. He's not going to reveal himself. He's going to bring justice down on Eve's ugly head if it's the last thing he does. No matter what it costs him. He sacrificed Lind L Tailor and a lot of other people to get to Kira. He's not about to surrender over _four_ deaths.

"What are you going to do?" Raye asks from the doorway.

He's been stupid. He let himself get caught up. That is the problem with unprofessional people. They make everyone else unprofessional, too. Matsuda was a mistake. No, _liking_ Matsuda was a mistake.

Just a mistake. One he doesn't intend to make again. These people that work for him, they're just people. Like any other. Exactly as important as any other.

Nothing more.

He had forgotten that for a little while. But he trained himself to function without emotion for thirteen years. He's not about to put all of that on the backburner over something that's happened in the past two weeks.

He doesn't need them. He doesn't need anyone.

"I get it," Raye says, incorrectly. "You don't know what to do. L...I. I miss Matsuda, too, you know."

L stops.

_That is incorrect_, his Near voice informs him, but he already knows. Yes. His old clarity is back. The world makes perfect sense.

"T," he says, simply.

Raye's head jerks suddenly, and he stares at L with wide eyes.

"What?"

"T," L pronounces once more, calmly. "We should not call him Matsuda. He was T. Just T."

Raye scowls at him.

"I can't believe you -"

"Is Adam Creagh still in the building?" L enquires, smoothly cutting him off.

"What? Uh, yeah. He's in the cell downstairs."

L smiles beatifically.

"Excellent," he says. "Fetch Watari for me, please."

Raye looks aghast.

"You...you're not actually going to..."

"I am going to do my job," L says succinctly. "Which I have been neglecting for quite some time now. Please fetch Watari. Tell him to bring his gloves. I want to see what Adam Creagh has to say for himself."

* * *

The techniques Watari uses are small, intricate, and don't leave marks. Presently he's pushing splinters under Creagh's fingernails. The man howls loudly with every move.

"Please," L says softly into the microphone. "Just tell us who contracted you to kill Touta Matsuda. That's all we want to know."

"No fuckin' way," Creagh gasps. "I told you. I'll talk if you pay me. One million. The amount they were gonna pay. Nothing fuckin' less."

"This is horrible," Rae says, sounding surprisingly genuine. It doesn't seem to be able to look at Creagh, instead turning its godawful eyes to the blank wall behind L. "Why don't you just give him the money? Or kill him. Don't do _this._"

Torture probably isn't something the Shinigami are familiar with.

"I very much doubt the money will convince him to talk," L explains. "And besides, how would I know whether he was telling the truth? No, this is the only way."

"You're a monster."

L shrugs. This is what must be done.

* * *

_You don't know where you are. You don't know who they are. All you're sure of, right now, is that you really, really fucking hurt._

_It's happened again. Kira's henchmen have gotten their hands on you again._

_Something burning hot is pressed against your upper arm. Pain screams through your nerves, and you can smell the flesh singe and burn._

_"FUCKSHITFUCK NO!" you yell, because you can't help it. They've blindfolded you and shackled you to something. There's nothing else to focus on._

_"I ask again," says the deep, obviously-synthesised voice above you, "where is L holding his next meeting?"_

_"I don't know," you pant. But you do know, and you're sure he knows that. _

_In exactly one week, L will be meeting with the Japanese police force in the basement of the old SPK building._

_They shouldn't have told you all the details. Near was right. No one should ever tell you anything. It's dangerous just to keep you around._

_The next press of burning metal lasts for thirty aching seconds. The pain roars around your mind, makes you stupid, oh god, you just want to tell them._

_You're so weak._

_Matt wouldn't tell them. He'd bite his own tongue off, first. Nothing damages Matt. He's indestructible. He takes everything as it comes. He'll never crash and burn the way you have.  
_

_He's the most beautiful thing in the world._

_He'll be at that meeting. Maybe, if you focus on that, you can get through this. You know Near and L won't be far behind. You know, intellectually, they should arrive by the end of the day. If you think about Matt, and how you absolutely cannot endanger his safety, maybe you can get through this nightmare._

_"Fuck you," you breathe. Your throat is dry and sore from screaming._

_"Come on, fat boy," another computerised voice bleats. "I don't know why you're suffering through so much. Those people clearly don't even like you."_

_The second person is new. Usually it's only the one guy. Or at least, it's always the same single deep voice. He finds you anywhere, no matter what you do. He snatched you out of your own bed, in your tiny cramped apartment under Matt's triple-locked and guard-protected house. You don't know how he does it._

_And still, occasionally, you get that niggling little feeling. Like all of this is scripted. Like it can't possibly be real._

_"It's real all right," says the first voice, and you realise you must have said that last bit out loud._

_"Who are you?" you mumble pathetically. "Why do you keep doing this? Why me?"_

_"Because you're so easy to break," he says nastily. The next press of the poker - you're sure it's a poker - is right above your eye. On the good side of your face._

_"OH GODNOSTOOOOP!"_

_He keeps it there for what feels like an eternity, searing into your skin, unbearable pain, until you're begging them out loud, anything, anything, just stop._

_"Then tell us," second voice commands. "C'mon, all we need is a time and a place. And then we'll take ya back home, how about that?"_

_Back home sounds good. You want to see Matt again. You want to be safe once more. You want a fucking bar of chocolate._

_And then you remember._

_They announced a date yesterday. The wedding is in six months time. Middle of summer. Jasmine is going to wear a yellow dress. The wedding cake is going to be filled with cherries._

_Oh god. Everything hurts.  
_

_You can still recall, in perfect detail, the night you confessed to him. It must have been eighteen months ago, now. It was just before you started getting fat. It was the night after you'd been abducted and tortured for the very first time. You'd been so scared, and he'd held you. And he'd felt so strong and safe, so you'd just blurted it out._

_'I love you.'_

_"You're lying!" first voice roars. "You said you'd do anything! Liar! Get the nails, Tyson."_

_The nails. You hate the nails. _

_He'd said 'that's okay'. That's what he'd said. He'd sounded so sad and sympathetic, like you'd just confessed you'd been diagnosed with cancer._

_And that night, he'd fucked Jasmine against the wall, right outside your room. _

_Pretty Jasmine, with her round little hips and her platinum blonde hair, and her pale skin. With her mismatched eyes - one blue eye and one green - that you wish made her look ugly, but instead just make her look unique and amazing. You always feel like she's staring right through you.  
_

_You heard every thump, every scream. The sex went on for hours._

_The message had been clear._

_"Through his palms, Tyson. Right the way through, this time. The left one first. Maybe he'll think twice before you decimate his dominant hand."_

_What's the point of being strong? You're nothing. You're useless. The others probably aren't even coming. They'll just chance the time and place of every event you know about and get on with their lives. _

_Sometimes, you despise them. All of them. Except him._

_The first tap of the hammer buries the nail halfway through your flesh. The pain is intolerable._

_"Three in the afternoon," you choke out, hating yourself with every word. "God, stop."_

_You wish they'd keep going. You wish they'd just kill you._

_There's a pause that drags on and on. You haven't given them enough information yet. They're waiting._

_"One more nail, right the way through," deep voice growls._

_If you can hold on a little longer, the others might come. But why should you? You hate Near. L hates you. Everyone expects you to let them down anyway._

_"No," you say quickly, just reacting, not thinking. "No. It's the old SPK building."_

_"Well done," Tyson purrs. "And what date?"_

_"The twenty-fifth of this month."_

_"Good boy," the first voice says, and he always sounds a little disappointed. Like he wishes you'd hold up to the torture longer._

_Well, you didn't. You just fulfilled everyone's predictions of you. Again._

_Your captors leave. You hear the door slam and a car engine start up somewhere outside. They leave you tied to the wall, blind and incapacitated._

_Broken and ashamed._

_Yeah, you wish they'd just kill you._

_

* * *

_

It takes a long time for Creagh to finally talk, and when he does, it's barely a sentence. Only one important word, really.

But it's the word L's been waiting to here.

"W-wait. I think. I think I overheard. They call themselves...Yotsuba."

"Thank you," L says curtly. "Watari, please make arrangements to have Mr Creagh sent back to custody."

"As you wish, L."

It's unlikely that the man knows any more details, and quite frankly, it's all he needs.

"You're not going to be able to convict based on what a tortured man said," Rae informs him haughtily. L smiles.

"No. But now that I'm sure, all I need is evidence."

"So you're going to send in that Soichiro character?"

L leaves the cell and heads towards his own office. He has work to do, after all.

"No," he says simply. "I very much doubt he will be able to obtain more information than what Adam Creagh was able to glean. And they will be suspicious of his sudden change of mind, if nothing else."

He sticks his head into the communal office and give the others his instructions. Raye...R is to contact the local police. They need them on-side now that half the city is tapped. M is to try and work out some sort of code for disabling the bugs in the credit card machines. Adam had been fast to admit to the method used to find Matsuda, and had offered up details without any encourgement at all. Hopefully his information will be sufficient to create some sort of counter-virus. N is to investigate high-profile cat burglars - he needs a replacement for Wedy, after all - and he also wants her to get him a preliminary report on the stock market.

L has a plan. He might be able to thwart Yotsuba without even leaving the building. And by 'might', he means he has a forty-nine point two eight percent chance.

It doesn't do to be vague.

He reaches his own office and curls up in his chair. Delicately, he picks up his phone and dials Soichiro's number.

"L? What is it. No one's contacted me yet."

"And I doubt they will," L says. "They've already made a move. I think they're going to be extra careful about who they hire from now on."

"What? What move? I had heard rumours that they killed someone, but I didn't know -"

"That's not relevant right now," L interrupts. "I no longer require your cooperation in this case."

"I thought we had a deal," he says, and he sounds annoyed. "I thought you needed me."

"Circumstances have changed," L says brusquely. "Your services are no longer required."

He hangs up. No time to waste. He's wasted too much time as it is.

The thing is, a company has more weaknesses than an individual. A company needs things to run. Like money.

L doesn't _need_ to leave the building to stop Yotsuba.

He can do it right here. From this chair.

All he needs is a little research.

* * *

N comes in a few hours later and hands him her stock market report. If she's at all surprised by the request, she doesn't show it.

She's always professional. He approves of that.

"You've...you've turned back into a robot," Rae says after she leaves. It sounds a little unnerved.

"I haven't been thinking straight," L tells it politely. "I let myself get too emotional. But that's sorted, now. I've remembered who I am. I apologise for attempting to use your death note on you. That was also a product of my troublesome emotions."

"I think I liked you better before," the Shinigami mutters. L smiles to himself. Rae liked him before because he was weak before, and the only chance Rae stands of beating him is if L is weakened.

His inner Near voice is never wrong. Much like the man himself.

L checks the calendar. Four days. His plan will take at least a week to work, but that's just the way it goes. It's still the best possible plan there is. L has analysed it from every angle.

He sets N's report down on the table and studies it intently. It's imperative not to make any mistakes. He needs to be absolutely certain.

He needs one hundred percent.

He's not going to turn Yotsuba in. They're going to turn themselves in. All he needs is to be slightly more clever than they are.

And he, L, is exactly twenty-one times more clever than they are.

Yotsuba has apparently forgotten that.

* * *

During his time as a detective, L has accumulated a lot of solved cases. And he's brought a lot of criminals to justice. Reprehensible murderers, enigmatic fraudsters, uncrackable paedophile rings, unscrupulous thieves, unfathomable rapists; all of them eventually fell to L's prowess.

Save one self-important little Japanese boy with a supernatural book and dysfunctional moral compass. Even so, L is certain that if he ever comes up against Light again, he'll win.

Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent success rate.

Justice always prevails. He is the reality of those ridiculous comic book characters M used to talk about.

To date, he has successfully solved one thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-four cases.

And of all of those cases, not one of them - not even one - has been _pro bono_. L is an expensive option. The specialist. The last resort. Paying Wedy a few thousand a job is nothing. He could construct an identical base in every country in the world using just his yearly bank interest.

L is rich. Loaded.

And the one thing that every member of Yotsuba loves is money. So he's taking that hostage, the way they're attempting to take his conscience hostage.

_We'll see who can hold out the longest_, he thinks.

According to N's report, Yotsuba has three main competitors in the stock market. Yates Enterprises, Harvington's Fish Products, and Bullion Barn. All four seem to compete for the top position, which changes from one to the other on a daily basis.

L smiles. Perfect. Exactly what he wants.

He picks up the phone and dials.

"Hallo, is this Yates Enterprises? My name is Aaron Martingale, and I'd like to purchase shares in the company. Yes, that's right. Hmm. Let's say, ten million American dollars worth, and we'll go from there."

Yotsuba won't know what hit them.

* * *

For the next three days, L does exactly the same thing. He invests money in whichever of the other three companies happen to be top of the market. If Yotsuba is on top, he invests in the next best.

It's new and interesting, playing the stock market. It's not something he's ever done before.

The others seem to have returned to their old routines. R is still subdued, but he's working hard, so L doesn't chastise him about it. M is the same as he ever was, unhappy and brilliant, lazily hacking through Yotsuba's clever eftpos bugs and everything else in his way. N is perhaps not quite herself yet. She spent the better part of the past two days surreptitiously enquiring into the state of L's emotional health before she apparently believed his _I'm quite fine, thank you_.

He is. He's just fine. He feels better than he has in a long, long time. Sinuous and coiled, ready for anything.

The plan is to push all three rival companies well above Yotsuba. According to his own research, that will be enough to push shares down through the floor, and essentially crash the company.

It won't be easy. Yotsuba and its supporters are putting up a tremendous fight, and money is pouring into the corporation from all angles. Winning just might take all of the money L owns.

That's okay, too. He likes to be challenged. Things get _boring_ when his cases are too simple. His mind is being driven in a new direction, widened in a new dimension. He needs to fine-tune his expertise to economics, and he needs to do it in under a week.

His current calculated chance of success is eighty-two point zero one percent.

"Who shall it be today?" he murmurs, surveying his computer screen carefully. "Bullion Barn is technically second, but Yates has been rising so rapidly over the past eight hours that I believe it may be the better option."

Yotsuba is in the top position again, but not by much. L's investments are definitely taking their toll.

"Go for Yates, then," Rae suggests irritably. "Or better yet, just get _rid_ of Yotsuba."

The Shinigami has been grumpy and unpleasant for days, its smugness over Matsuda's death completely evaporated.

L is pleased by this. Perhaps it has given up. Perhaps he actually frightened it when he wrote its name in the death note so quickly and easily.

Perhaps it's plotting something else.

He cannot yet predict Rae well enough to place exact numerical values on the three possible outcomes, but the last reason is by far the most likely.

No matter. Whatever Rae dishes out, L can handle. He knows that now.

"I was thinking of Barn, myself," L muses. "The idea, after all, is to override Yotsuba. Only Barn can do that today."

"Then why did you ask me?" Rae snarls.

"I didn't," L says politely. "I was talking to myself. It's something humans do, you know. I spoke to myself a long time before you were ever around me."

"Fine!" the Shinigami says darkly. "Fine. You know, I don't understand you at all, Lawliet. Aren't you even the slightest bit upset that your little failsafe has failed?"

_Yes, you always intended to use my emotions to manipulate me, didn't you_, L thinks. _I bet you didn't plan for this. You wanted me to go on being weak and dependent._

_I would have been easy, then._

_But I am L. And I am strong. And the only person I depend on is me._

"I regret that I made a mistake," L agrees out loud. "It is certainly inconvenient for me that he died. But, at the same time, I am now confident I will not be needing any failsafes, Shinigami."

"You're not even human," Rae declares, pointing at him accusingly. "You're...you're less human than _I_ am."

"That would be impossible," L says smoothly. "Nothing in the world could ever be less human than you are."

"I'm going flying," Rae says, abruptly. "There's a stink in here, and I want to get away from it."

L is four point seven one percent certain that Shinigami do not possess a sense of smell.

"Is something wrong, Rae?" he asks in his most infuriating voice. "Is reaching the throne much more demanding than you imagined?"

The god of death takes a few steps and closes the gap between them, staring down at L with it's hellish red eyes.

L stares right back. Those eyes don't bother him the way they used to. They're just another thing. Another puzzle to be solved. Break Yotsuba, outstare Rae, eat cake, extract Mello from hell...

_Mello_.

L clamps down tightly on the wave of inconvenient emotion that momentarily threatens to unseat him.

He's stronger than that.

"One day," Rae announces. "One day, I'm going to watch you _die_."

"Yes," L says, barely paying attention. "I know."

It's hardly the most important thing in the world.

* * *

M comes to see him that evening.

"I've noticed something," he says immediately, without waiting for L to acknowledge him. He always gets straight to the point.

"What is it?" L asks. He takes a sip of his tea. It's hot and sweet and perfect. Barn toppled Yotsuba out of first position easily. It's been a good day.

"Well, I've been analysing the activities of similar stock, but also related investors," M replies in his usual monotone. "I've noticed something unusual."

He places his own laptop on the desk and opens it, pointing at the animated graph he's created.

"See, this is a record of the major investors over the past three days, since you started this project."

"I see," L says. "The yellow line represents my own movements."

"Yeah, that's your Aaron Martingale," M murmurs. "Most of the other investors either float to whoever is top of the market, or they stick with one particular corporation."

"Which makes sense," L tells him. "That is how people normally invest."

"Right," M agrees. "But look at the orange line."

L tilts his head.

"I thought the orange line was just a shadow effect of the yellow line?"

"Nope," M says, pointing at the legend. "That's a company called Nado Incorporated. They've made exactly the same choices as you have, every single day."

"Three times in a row could easily be chance," L says, rubbing the side of his head. "There's a fifteen point two zero percent likelihood that any two investors might seem to be synchronised for a short period of time. Of course, it would be interesting if they continued to make similar decisions."

"Perhaps, but that wasn't my point," M says bluntly. "I ran a background check on Nado Incorporated. It's a relatively new company, been around for a about a year and a half, but when I map their investments all the way back to the beginning..."

M pauses just long enough to hit a few buttons and bring up a new, much longer, graph.

"...I found this," he finishes.

L traces the screen with his finger, fascinated.

"Every single movement they've made seems to be a deliberate attempt to thwart Yotsuba," he says softly. "Every single day, supporting the most successful rival. This has been going on for over a year."

"I thought it might be relevant, anyway," M says, reaching for his cigarette. "You have an unknown ally."

"Yes, I think this bears keeping in mind," L tells him. "Thank you. You have done well. Please find me contact details for a Nado representative, in case we ever need them."

"Right," M says, gathering his laptop from the desk. He leaves a few seconds later, without wasting words on a goodbye.

L approves of that, too.

He presses his left hand to his mouth.

_So Yotsuba, like me, has many enemies_, he thinks. _How interesting._

_Surely this can be used to our advantage._

* * *

L works through the night, and the next morning comes. It's been four days. He wonders what Yotsuba will do. He wonders who they'll choose.

He doesn't have to wonder very long. R comes into his office around lunchtime, arms folded and fuming.

"Another death," he informs L angrily. "Two, in fact."

_Two? They're getting cocky_.

"Who was it?' L asks. "Anyone we know?"

"Not directly, no." R seems to be enraged by the simple question. "But that doesn't mean they deserved to _die_, either."

"Of course," L intones. "No one _deserves_ to die."

"Their names were Adan and Felicia Amane," R informs him bitterly. "I'm sure you can guess why Yotsuba targeted them."

"Misa's parents," L says, surprised. Of course they'd be here. They have no reason to be in hell. Innocent people, murdered before their time. Twice now.

_And both times, they died together_, he notes, and thinks briefly of M.

"Yes," R says tersely, and shakes his head. "Those poor people."

"Indeed," L agrees. "And yet, in their death, they have helped us immensely."

The older man gapes at L.

"What? How?"

"By their tenuous connection to me," L explains. "First Woodford, now the Amane's. Yotsuba clearly has not located any other member of my staff, or indeed, any of my present contacts. That is an extremely useful thing to know."

R bristles.

"Murder isn't a statistic, you know," he growls. "Seriously, what's gotten into you? You were almost nice before, now you're back to being -"

"I do not pay you to comment on my personality," L says, a warning tone in his voice. "When you return to the office, please remind the others that they are not yet permitted to leave the building."

R is intelligent enough to recognise a dismissal when he hears one, L knows.

"Fine," he replies, irately. "You know you won't be able to stop M from going to church, right?"

"I have no intention of even attempting to do that," L says, and since he didn't make it clear enough the first time. "You may go, R."

* * *

The letter attached to Adan Amane's arm informs L that he has another four days before the next fatality.

It's nice that they're being so straightfoward about their murders. It makes planning easier. It should take another three days, maximum, to do what he wants to do.

He's barely one quarter of the way through his funds. His chances of succeeding have risen to eighty-five point seven five percent.

Nado Incorporated continues to make almost exactly the same investments as he does. According to M's background check, they have about half as much money as L does, and they always buy a relatively modest number of share.

But still, the pattern is fascinating. They're obviously clever, but they're not out to invest. They're out to break Yotsuba.

_The enemy of my enemy is my friend_.

If L believed that, he'd be dead by now.

* * *

Another two days, another twelve million dollars thrown at companies L doesn't actually care about, one way or another.

He should be getting close now.

The local police claim to have removed most of the bugs in the city, but L doesn't particularly trust their judgement. There were no physical devices inserted into the terminals, instead a virus was transmitted wirelessly to alter the destination of the reporting mechanism. M has worked out a counter-virus that could be broadcast to neutralise the bugs, but the panicked police are reluctant to trust it. Instead, they prefer to disrupt all signals across the city.

L is certain the store owners won't comply with such nonsense for very long. Still, this isn't a police case. No one has summoned him here. No one has asked for his help. This is between him and Yotsuba, and he cannot rely on anyone else.

He instructs M to go ahead and send his virus live. Without permission. L is no stranger to indulging in minor crimes to abort major crimes, after all.

When N comes in to his office with wet eyes and a sad little smile, he knows exactly what she's going to say. It's highly unlikely that Yotsuba has killed anyone outside of schedule, which means that...

"Wedy...Wedy's dead," she reports flatly. "She died in the early hours of this morning. She never woke up."

"I see," L says. "Thank you."

That's one less thing to worry about, then.

* * *

"I don't like this," Raye says for the eighth time in an hour. "If L doesn't get his act into gear, we're going to have _another_ death on our hands. Maybe more than one."

"Honey," Naomi says in a warning tone of voice. "We've had this conversation before. If you're really worried, we can talk to L about it this evening. But right now, I need to focus."

L has assigned her the task of contacting international news networks, especially those in America. He has a message for Yotsuba. One that definitely doesn't involve revealing his face.

_Dear Y. Call off the murderers, and I'll call off the investors. You have two days to respond. L._

She's presently multitasking six different emails and three different phone calls. She can't hold down a conversation with her huband at the same time.

"I don't understand why neither of you are concerned," Raye continues irritably, apparently ignoring her previous remark.

Naomi tears her attention away from her computer long enough to glare at him.

"Because we trust L," she says fiercely. "And because we're working hard to bring Yotsuba to justice."

"Because we don't care?" M suggests unhelpfully, from across the room.

"Oh, of course," Raye retorts, bristling. "Right. _Sorry_ for caring about something other than research or a dead man."

Naomi shakes her head in disbelief.

_Oh god. You did not just say that, Raye_.

M is on his feet in seconds. He grabs Raye by the throat.

"What did you say, Penber?" he growls, dark and angry, eyes glittering.

Sometimes M scares her more than Light ever did. At least Light had been motivated by greed, not love. Greed, at least, is finite.

"Nothing," Raye gurgles.

M doesn't release him immediately.

"That's enough," Naomi says sharply, hoping to startle him into loosening his grip.

M is still regarding her husband like he's a piece of filth. Naomi gets up from her chair, although she's not really certain what she's going to do.

No one taunts M. Raye ought to know that. Really, he's just being stupid. Her hand closes over the boy's wrist.

"Please let my husband go," she says, loudly politely.

At that second the intercom buzzes. M releases Raye roughly and stalks back to his computer. Naomi isn't sure if was due to her request, or the distraction of the noise. She presses the 'communicate' button.

"What is it, L?" she asks, ignoring the way Raye is rubbing at his neck and gasping dramatically.

"I have a new task for R," L says calmly. "Is he there,"

"I'm here," Raye wheezes. "What is it?"

He still manages to sound unimpressed, despite his obvious temporary airway issues.

"I want you to be my contact," L informs him.

"For Yotsuba?"

"For Nado Incorporated."

Raye frowns.

"Who –"

"M has the documents and the contact details," L interrupts. "This company seems to be a very active investor in everything except Yotsuba. It would be beneficial to have them as allies."

"Hang on a second. I thought you said you could handle this by yourself. Why the sudden need for help? Have you run out of money?"

"Well, M's most recent report does suggest that Yotsuba is drawing funds from more sources than when we started," N tells him gently.

Of course, she isn't actually sure that those funds will be sufficient to overpower L, because none of them know for sure how much L is worth. But it certainly sounds like their boss is struggling.

Or he has something else planned for Nado.

"It would be beneficial if you could keep up with the intelligence we've gleaned," L chimes in. "I have made it available to you, after all."

Naomi grits her teeth. L's attitude is no better than Raye's. He's _looking_ for a fight. Or maybe he's so socially inept he doesn't realise.

She really, really misses Matsuda. Now she's the only one who can keep the peace. And she's getting tired.

"Anything else?" Raye spits.

"That is all," L says, and ends the connection.

Her husband stands next to her, wringing his hands, eyes furious.

"I hate him," he says emphatically, to no one in particular.

For once in her life, Naomi really doesn't know what to say.

* * *

The Nado contact turns out to be a very pretty red-head with far too much makeup and not enough material in her shirt. She looks like an expensive prostitute, but she talks like a high-end diplomat.

"This is Nado enterprises," she chirps, as soon as she accepts Raye's video call. "My name is Angela. How may I direct your call?"

She has a slight Russian accent. Raye is willing to bet that Angela is not her real name.

"My name is Aaron Martingale," he says in his most pleasant voice. He is a professional, after all. "I'm an investor, like your corporation. It seems we have a common rival. I wanted to talk to someone about forming a…financial alliance."

"Ah, Mr Martingale," she says warmly. "My employers have been following your movements throughout the week. May I congratulate you on your sound choices of investment?"

"Thank you," Raye says courteously. She's good. She's very good.

"What interests us most," she continues, "is that you seem to be so very _new_. You only started, what, six days ago? There is no doubt you have considerable resources. Why did you choose this time to start… investing?"

He knows what she means. _What is your current quarrel with Yotsuba?_

He also knows that L will be silently observing the conversation from his own office, ready to terminate or salvage the conversation if Raye puts a foot wrong.

Which is fine. Raye's not going to make _any_ mistakes. He's as good as the best of them, and L knows that. Or he ought to know that, by now.

"A myriad of reasons," he informs her. "Which I would be willing to discuss with your employers, should they be interested."

She laughs prettily.

"Right to the point, aren't you?" she comments. "Well, I'm afraid I can't help you. My employers have no real drive to join forces with anyone right now. And besides, I'm certain that compared to you, the contribution of this company would be meagre, at best."

_Damnit_. _She's bailing out on me_.

He refuses to fail in front of L.

"Wait," he says, although he has no idea what he's going to say after that.

She smiles widely.

"Of course, if you're lying to me - if you are not, in fact, Aaron Martingale, but instead the detective known as L – _then_ my employers might be interested in some sort of accord."

_She's got me,_ Raye realises.

"I'm not really sure what you're alluding to," he says calmly, and pretends to notice something across the room. "Would you mind holding for a moment."

"Of course," she tells him, as if she's anticipated he'd need to discuss things with someone else.

Raye switches off his microphone, and the intercom immediately buzzes.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks, not bothering to hide the dislike in his voice.

"Tell her you're me," he replies immediately. He's thought about this. Planned for this. Weighed this up and calculated all of the probabilities.

Bastard.

"Fine," he says briskly, and switches back to Angela.

"Where were we?" he asks, instantly calm and smiling once more.

"You were about to tell me you're L, I imagine," he says coolly. "Although I doubt you're the real L, but that's fine. You're an agent of his, and that's enough."

_Fuck, she's really, really good._

"How –"

"We are aware that the group known as Yotsuba – our common enemy, I believe – is presently targeting L. That is fairly common knowledge, since notes to L have been found on two of the recent victims. It has only been over that time that Martingale has been active in the market. The natural conclusion is that Martingale is working for, and funded by, L."

"Right," Raye says weakly.

"And of course, if I were speaking with the real L, he wouldn't have needed to check with anyone before complying with my earlier request," she finishes sweetly.

"You're right, of course," he replies, recovering a little. "I guess I wasn't overly subtle. Does this mean we have some sort of accord?"

"I'll give you my bosses if you'll give me yours," she says playfully.

"My boss doesn't show his face," Raye warns her.

"As expected, then," she continues. "Does the detective have any objections to, say, six o'clock this evening? I'll hold while you ask him."

"What an intelligent woman," L comments dryly when Raye hits the intercom button.

"I hope they're paying her well," Naomi adds.

"That time is fine," L says. "They can contact me by this number."

"Right."

Raye gets Angela back on the line.

"We have a deal," he tells her.

* * *

Five forty-five finds L eating a parfait bigger than his head and waiting for the telephone to ring.

"I don't get it," Rae says blankly. "How are these people going to know that it's you? They're pretty trusting. We could be Yotsuba trying to get to them."

"Yes," L agrees. "And the considering how long they've been playing the stockmarket, Yotsuba must surely consider Nado as an established and potentially dangerous rival by now. I imagine it would take very little to tip them over into an out-and-out attack."

"And that's what you're planning to do?" Rae asks, reading him perfectly. L is a little impressed.

"Perhaps," he says thoughtfully. "It would be nice to force Yotsuba's hand. That would give us plenty of evidence against them."

"I don't know," the Shinigami tells him. "Obviously they managed to get through the flu-x virus court case unscathed."

"Unfortunately, I believe it was the justice system that let us down," L says primly. "We had only one man's word that Yotsuba was responsible, and so they simply set up a few lower employees to take the blame."

"So how are you going to stop them from doing that this time?"

L taps his forehead lightly.

"M has found me the direct line to the executives of Yotsuba. He's mapped out their entire building, the plumbing, the wiring, every single detail. This particular phone line is answerable only by the director of the board. No one else may touch it. You can imagine how such a thing might be necessary in a corrupt business."

"Right," Rae says, but he can tell it's not keeping up with him. That's fine. He hasn't given it much to go by.

"I have a plan to set them up to reveal themselves as murderers," he summarises. "But I need the help of Nado to do that."

Rae tilts its head and regards the ceiling. L takes another few bites of his dessert.

"Oh," the death god says suddenly, after less than three minutes of contemplation. "I see. Very clever."

"You're fairly impressive yourself, sometimes," L says around a mouthful of sugary goo.

"It would be easier to just use the death note, however."

"Spoke too soon," L says ruefully. The phone rings, a jaunty, silly-sounding tune that had obviously been selected by Matsuda.

For a split second, L's hand falters. Then he steels himself and picks up the handset.

"This is L," he says briskly. The videolink opens up a blank page.

_So they're concealing their identities too. Fascinating._

He wonders how they expect him to trust them.

"Mr L. Thank you for your time."

The voice is soft, male, and obviously not filtered. It also tugs at the very edges of L's memory.

"Who are you?" he asks.

"I am the head executive of Nado," the voice tells him. "I have the only other existing executive with me as well."

_You're expecting me to recognise you, aren't you_, L thinks. _That's why your voice isn't filtered. You've spoken to L before, so if I'm the real L, I'll recognise you._

"I've heard your voice before," he admits. "But I'm afraid I cannot put a face to it yet. Perhaps I'll be able to by the end of this conversation."

"L," says a second voice, louder and harsher than the first. "We want you to confirm the ultimate goal behind your investments."

"Yes, that's right," the head executive agrees silkily. "Do we perhaps have a common enemy?"

"I confess, I am presently attempting to unseat Yotsuba," L informs them. If they _are_ Yotsuba, then they'll be attempting to tap the call right now. And M will pick up on that.

"As expected. That particular company has a nasty little way of dealing with people who have wronged it."

"You should be careful," the other executive adds.

"Thank you for the warning," L says. "But I am quite familiar with Yotsuba's ethics. What I am interested in is your cooperation in the matter of unseating them."

And by 'unseating', he means 'bringing to justice for multiple murders'. But everyone involved in this phone conversation already knows that.

"I'd also like you to confirm that there is no possibility this line has been tapped," he adds.

"That is confirmed," second voice says firmly. "Like Yotsuba, we also have…people who wish to disband us."

"Of course," L says, smiling a little.

_You. I know your voice too._

_A long time ago. Five…no, about six years ago._

_Something to do with the Kira case._

His inner Near voice twirls a strand of hair around it's metaphorical fingers.

_Do you realise how imprecise your thought processes have become, L?_

He does. He's working on it.

He refuses to answer his inner Near voice, because he's afraid that might categorise him as 'mad'.

"As for your first request, set out your terms, and we'll decide if we have an accord," the head executive adds. He doesn't seem to ever have much emotion in his voice, whereas his deputy seems to be constantly bouncing between fear, anger, and determination.

_It was the Yotsuba part of the Kira case, too. I remember._

_Hold on, that means you must be…_

"Reiji Namikawa," he says with certainty. "And probably Shingo Midou."

There is a pause, and L knows then that he is absolutely correct.

"Yes," Namikawa says softly.

The computer screen flickers, and suddenly he has visual of the two men. It's definitely them. They've barely changed. Namikawa is still tall and handsome, but he's cut his long hair off at the level of his chin. Midou still looks disturbingly like Light, and a little like Mail used to. He's obviously fidgeting underneath the desk.

"Is this not dangerous?" L questions. "For all you know, I could be Yotsuba. Now I know who you are."

Namikawa laughs.

"Yotsuba already knows who we are," Midou tells him. "There was a lot of bad blood around when we broke off from the company, believe me."

"And besides, none of the other executives could have guessed our identities so calmly," Namikawa adds. "Your response gives you away."

_Confident_, L notes.

"I see. In that case, why should I trust you? How can I know that you've really severed contact with Yotsuba? You could easily still be working for them. This might be an elaborate ploy."

"Yes," Namikawa replies, equally calm. "I have no proof, of course. I presume your own deductive powers have already told you the truth, or you would have ended the phone conversation long before now."

"Very well done," L concedes. "That is correct. You have not acted as Yotsuba would. You are presently only fourteen point eight nine percent likely to be involved with them."

"Right," Midou says, adjusting his glasses. "Can we get on with this, please?"

"There are a few things I need to know," L tells them. "First of all, my research shows that your base in the United States, a few hours' flight from Yotsuba's. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Good," L pronounces. "That will work for what I have planned."

There's a building half a block away that should suit them just fine.

"Also, you need to be aware that this plan involves some risk on your behalf. You are both in a position to be the perfect bait to drive Yotsuba to extreme measures. I need to know that you're prepared to place yourselves in danger before I initiate this plan."

"Danger?" Midou snaps.

"What are our chances of surviving this, L?" Namikawa asks slowly.

_Ah. A man after my own heart_.

"You have four point one zero percent chance of dying," L says honestly, sticking his thumb in his mouth. "And a five point four seven percent chance of being seriously injured."

"Those odds are acceptable," Namikawa says softly.

"What?" Midou snaps. "Four percent? That's not acceptable. What if…"

"It's all right," Namikawa interrupts softly, away from the microphone. "Risks must be taken to stop Yotsuba. And we both agreed their tactics were unbearable. It would not be right to let this chance go by."

"But…"

The head executive puts his hand gently on the other man's head, silencing him.

_Ah_, L thinks. _That might be a problem, too_.

"I need you to decide now whether you are going to comply," he tells them matter-of-factly. "My plan cannot go ahead without your help."

"We'll do it," Namikawa says. Midou stares at the desk.

"Excellent," L says. "We ought to do this tomorrow. Does that suit you?"

"_Tomorrow_?"

"That is fine."

"Excellent," L tells them. "Then listen closely. This is what I want you to do."

* * *

R is predictably ropeable.

"I can't believe you want us to fly to the States _tonight_. You haven't even been letting us leave the house!"

"To be fair, nothing happened to M when he went to church," N says helpfully, and L gives her a brief nod of appreciation.

R is quickly becoming troublesome. If he doesn't start cooperating soon, L may need to assign him some retraining.

He needs his team to stay reliable and predictable. Only then will things run as smoothly as they possibly can.

"We know that Yotsuba has not pinpointed our location," L adds. "We believe we have neutralised the bugs in the local businesses, but that is irrelevant. We'll be taking our own jets."

L owns two small aircraft that are stored on a private airfield just outside of town.

"We'll be travelling in two groups. You will travel with your wife and Watari, leaving in one hour. M and I will follow you in the early hours of the morning."

Sometimes, L will let M fly the plane. If he doesn't seem to be particularly suicidal.

R seems to be somewhat mollified by the fact that he's been grouped with his wife.

"Right, okay."

"This place on Acherton Street," N says. "What sort of building is it?"

"Small businesses on the lower floor, apartments on top," L tells her. "Our station is in the basement, this time."

Out of sight. He can't risk Yotsuba finding him.

"Right. So we set up there, and then I make the call?" she double-checks.

"Yes. Straight away, before I've even arrived."

"Done," N says, rubbing her hands together. "Well, I think that's everything."

"Right," R agrees. "We should go."

* * *

Takeshi Ooi triple locks the door before he grabs a flute of champagne from his full-sized office bar and settles into his luxury Ottoman 4000. It's been a long day. The shareholders are dropping like flies. Some rich dick called Aaron Martingale – who is almost definitely hired by L – keeps trying to screw them over.

He sets the glass aside and folds his hands on the desk, listening to his rings clink together. L is becoming a problem. The man has thwarted them twice now. Takeshi is getting sick of him. If he could locate L's base in London, this could be over tonight.

But no matter. When enough people start dying, the public outcry will be enough. L will be forced to show himself. All he needs to do is keep hiring the snipers.

And hoping his shareholders stick with the company. According to his team of analysts, there's a thirtysomething percent chance L will crash the company before enough deaths accumulate.

It's time to increase the deaths to one every two days. He makes a cryptic note of that on his gold-encased notepad, and takes another sip of his champagne.

His phone buzzes softly, briefly bathing his desk in blue light. He doesn't hesitate. Only a very select few have his extension, and none of them would call unless something important is going on.

"Yes?"

"Hi," says an unfamiliar and perky-sounding female voice, and he immediately bristles. "I was looking for Reiji Namikawa. Is he in?"

Takeshi clenches his fist so hard the glass cracks and cuts into his hand.

_Namikawa. What is this, you bastard?_

"I'm afraid Mr Namikawa isn't here," he says, steeling his voice. "You see, he's-"

"Oh, could you pass on a message?" she asks effervescently. "This is Melanie from Cook Capers. I'm supposed to be catering a meeting between him and some woman called Elle tomorrow morning, but I can't find the address. I don't know whether it's at Acherton Street or Acherton Avenue."

Takeshi is silent for a moment, processing everything she's said. And then he grins, broad and catlike.

He can't believe his good fortune.

"Yes," he says slowly. "I'll pass that message on. What time are you supposed to be catering?"

"Ten o'clock sharp," she says, sounding a little harried. "It's kind of important, but I realise I'm calling a little late. Have him call me first thing in the morning."

"Oh, I will," he tells her, and hangs up.

So, Nado is in cahoots with L, are they? And a _meeting_. Tomorrow. And now he knows the time and place.

He presses the intercom button.

"Eiichi, contact all of the snipers and tell them to regroup right outside this building, by nine am tomorrow.

"Yes sir."

Takeshi Ooi grins, and pours himself another glass.

It's shaping up to be an excellent night.

* * *

"So let me get this straight," N says, folding her arms. "We're trusting these ex-Yotsuba members to help us trap their old colleagues, is that right?"

"_Why_ are we trusting them?" R demands.

"It is true that I still hold some suspicions this may be a trap," L agrees. "But either way, we're in very little danger. Namikawa and Midou do not know our exact location, and therefore we cannot be ambushed."

"That makes sense," N concedes. "I suppose, too, if they've complied willingly to these circumstances, then they're not likely to be trying to kill us."

"Or they would have asked for something that compromised us more," L finishes. "I believe you are correct."

"I don't know who to trust any more," R mutters. He checks his computer. "I've got confirmation from all of the local police units now. They'll be moving into position as we speak."

"Good," L says, and then adds. "Well done."

A little encouragement won't hurt R right now. The man just snorts and pretends to be focused on his monitor. L heads back into the observation room they've set up. M and Watari are at Nado enterprises, setting up taps in the room they've selected for the non-existant meeting.

As he watches, the screen flickers to life, showing him the lavish interior of an expensive meeting room. The room itself is huge - at least ten times the bredth of his own oversized office - the table is clearly antique, and all the seats are plush. He scans briefly. As Namikawa promised, there is a sheet of one-way glass separating this room from the next, with a near-invisible door set into it.

_Good_.

"Wow," Rae comments. "These people clearly have a _lot_ of money."

M briefly passes by the camera, so close that L can count his freckles. He then moves to one side, fiddles with some wires, and then the speakers are crackling and they have audio as well.

"Any blind spots?" he asks boredly.

"None," L informs him. "Please check the audio and return to base."

M nods once and leaves again. Watari comes in with Midou and Namikawa, who clearly haven't killed him yet, which is always a good sign.

"Hey, is this room ready?" Midou asks nervously, surveying their handiwork. Or rather, surveying the absence of their handiwork. All of the electronics and wires have been completely hidden from sight.

L knows Yotsuba will have spies in Nado. They're clearly not particularly high-up, but there are always a certain number of underlings who can be bought and bribed.

Everything needs to be perfect. Yotsuba cannot get suspicious. And that means Nado's own employess cannot be suspicious.

"Yes," L tells him, via the speakers they've set up, and he almost jumps out of his skin.

"Well, I certainly don't notice anything out of the ordinary in here," Namikawa says to Watari. "You have done an excellent job."

"Thank you," Watari says, bowing. His face is completely concealed under his high-collared trench coat and low hat.

"I really don't like this," Midou says.

_So negative and scared_, L thinks, _you're just like Raye_.

_But that's all right. You'll obviously do anything Reiji tells you to. Which means you can be predicted quite accurately._

"Midou?" L asks softly. "Can you verify that the police are in position?"

"Oh," he says. "Right. There are presently fifty-four officers from various local stations crammed into the next room, as well as six FBI agents in various positions. Oh, I think one of them wanted me to ask you to hurry up?"

L smiles.

"It's only nine forty-one," he says. "Namikawa? My men need to return to our base now. Are you ready?"

"I'm not sure," Midou says quickly. Namikawa's hand closes over his wrist.

"We'll be fine, L," he states, with a confident little smile.

They both have bulletproof vests on. Just in case.

"Excellent," L says. "Let's proceed, shall we?"

* * *

When the clock switches from 9:59am to 10:00am, a tall man with a hood pulled down over his face approaches the Nado building and is welcomed inside.

He is observed by twenty-two of the world's best snipers, all hidden in various ways in the ornamental garden outside.

They already know, from Yotsuba's intensive research, that that doorway is the only way to enter or leave the building.

None of them know that he is a heavily-armoured FBI agent, and not the detective known as L.

A few moments pass, and their gazes are drawn to the large windows on the fourth floor, and the shapes of three men gathered around a table. The men seem to be discussing something.

They await the word from Tristan, a young Nado employee who was contracted by Yotsuba months ago. He's too low down in the company to be of use very often, and he certainly wouldn't have been able to inform Ooi of the meeting, but he's useful for this.

Maybe he'll even get a pay raise.

"Everything is confirmed," his voice buzzes into their earpieces. "They're all there. In room 9A. Both executives seem to be behaving normally. That's all I know."

"Perfect," Takeshi Ooi's voice booms. "Gentlemen. Ladies. Move out."

Carefully and precisely, all twenty two of them swarm into the building.

* * *

What happens next is a rush of adrenaline, of genius, of madness. Twenty-two hitmen - every single one with the same three targets - clash with sixty law-enforcing authorities in a flurry of gunshot and smoke and limbs.

And all of it recorded, every second, every detail, on M's wonderful cameras.

Only Yotsuba knew of this meeting. Naomi's fake catering call was listened to by the chief of police. There is absolutely no reason for anyone else to attack Nado.

As a bonus, some of these thugs will probably talk. Eventually.

L leans forward in his chair and allows himself a tiny grin.

_Exactly as planned_.

He's not even excessively concerned when one of the snipers fires wild and hits Midou.

* * *

Raye doesn't actually remember getting to his feet. Nor does he remember stalking over to L, grabbing him by the collar, and dragging him out of his chair.

It's like he's been in shock. The whole scenario is nightmarish, like something from a horror movie. So many people just firing into the crowd.

So much blood.

_L did this_.

"What..." he says thickly, and has to try three times before he manages to swallow the bile in his throat. "What... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

L stares at him with wide, innocent eyes.

"I've won," he informs Raye happily. "I've beaten them. No jury in the world will find them innocent after this."

"YOU'RE _KILLING PEOPLE_!"

"Honey..." Naomi says, but he can tell her heart's not in it by the way she hesitates.

L blinks sleepily.

"No one has been killed," he says firmly. "The police officers are completely armoured, including their faces. They may at worst sustain moderate injuries from close-range fire."

"WHAT ABOUT HIM?" Raye howls, pointing at the screen. Midou is bleeding profusely from a wound at the base of his neck. He staggers against Namikawa and slowly collapses to the ground. Namikawa dives and catches him.

He's yelling. Screaming for help. Somebody. Anybody.

"Both of the executives were aware of the risk before they agreed," L says calmly. "I even calculated the percentages for them."

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"

"Raye..."

"Not _now_, Naomi!" he snaps, trying not to yell at her. It's not her fault. It's not her fault.

"It would have been suspicious for him to wear armour on his face or neck," L says, still maddeningly unbothered. "The staff would have noticed, and Yotsuba has access to some of the staff."

Raye punches him. His fist connects with the centre of L's stomach, and L goes flying across the room.

"That was unnecessary," he says, sounding nothing more than a little winded.

"_Fuck_ you," Raye says angrily, and starts walking towards the door. "I'm going to help them."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees L signal to Watari. Five seconds later, he is pinned up against the wall.

"_Fuck you_," he rages. "Let me go! Let me _go!_ They need help!"

On the screen, Namikawa has managed to drag Midou behind a desk. There's blood pouring everywhere. He doesn't seem to know what to do.

In the background, the fight still rages, on and on. The snipers won't fucking give up, and some of them are fucking _brilliant_.

"If you go in there now," L says, "you will certainly be killed, and that would be a waste. Do not throw away your life so easily, R."

"Raye?" Naomi says, and she sounds almost...frightened. "He's right. This fight is horrific, I know, but please don't go up there.

_Bastard_, Raye thinks. _She's playing right into his hands, doesn't he realise?_

_Are we just going to leave these innocent people to die?_

He slumps against the wall, and Watari releases him. Naomi comes and stands beside him, her shoulder pressed against his, just letting him be angry.

"This is sick," Raye says quietly, scrubbing at his temples. "Honey, we need to go up there."

"It won't do any good," she reminds him.

Raye turns his attention back to the screen. Midou will die soon if someone doesn't do something, Namikawa's in fucking pieces, and he knows the paramedics won't enter the building until all the snipers have been subdued. Which doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.

He doesn't want to see this.

_Thump_.

Raye turns around at the sound of boots hitting the ground. Mail is on his feet. L is watching him curiously.

"Are you going to fuckin' stop _me_?" he demands, blue eyes glinting dangerously. "Well?"

L blinks, and then turns his attention back to the screen.

"No," he concedes. "Probably not."

"Good," Mail says darkly. "I'm going to fucking help them, then."

Raye watches him as he stomps out of the room.

Sometimes, just sometimes, he absolutely adores that kid.

* * *

M appears on the screen not three minutes later, and he walks across the room like there's not a raging battle going on. People just seem to get out of his way, unnerved by his dead eyes and pale, waxy skin.

Or maybe they just recognise the expression on his face. The one that says _I have nothing to lose. Look out for me_.

Hell, he even scares _her _sometimes, and Naomi's no pushover.

Miraculously, he makes it to Midou without being shot. He's unconscious with blood loss, cradled against his colleague's chest. He looks like he's already dead.

Namikawa stares up at M like he's the hand of god.

"Help me," he says softly. "I...I can't stop it...the bleeding."

From what L says, he's supposed to be eloquent, intelligent, and unfailingly sensible. Right now he looks like a child.

She doesn't understand why M is doing this. M cares for no-one. He never has, not even when they first met him.

She doesn't even think he cares for L.

He's trustworthy because he can be neither swayed nor bought. Nothing matters to him.

M kneels down, rips a piece of silk from Namikawa's jacket without asking permission, and presses it over the wound.

"He's still breathing," he says gruffly. "Still got a pulse. Don't fall apart yet."

"Okay," the executive replies, hands trembling. "I...okay. Just tell me what to do. And...thank you."

"We'll take him to the ambulance as soon as we can," M adds. "There's a bullet in there still. Got to get it out."

Namikaway pulls Midou closer, knuckles whitening.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't think you'd get hurt."

L looks away from the screen at the same time Matt averts his eyes, and suddenly she realises.

_Oh_. _He reminds you of that boy. The one you lost. Mello_.

She bites her lip. M's life is so unyieldingly sad that she tries not to think about it too often.

_Get them out of there safe then, boy,_ she thinks. _I'm sure you know that not everything can be salvaged so easily._

_

* * *

_

Two days later, when they finally get back to London, Yotsuba's defeat is still all over the news. Ooi, Eichii, and all of the other executives are in custody, denied bail, charged with murder, attempted murder and several counts of fraud.

There is also talk of re-examining the attempted genocide case from last year.

Doubtlessly, they'll be out of L's hair for a very long time.

The others have been almost completely silent since the arrest of the snipers. L recognises that they're unhappy, but he has made all the right decisions, he's sure. He calculated and recalculated. Nothing could have been done any differently.

Midou is in hospital, but not yet conscious.

He's just a casualty. A statistic. Someone always gets hurt, and he is no more important than any other person. L knows this. It's a cold way of thinking, but someone has to be cold and logical.

And that someone is him. That's his job. To be unflappable, unfaltering, and unstoppable.

When R comes into his office, expression a strange mix of anguish and determination, it's hardly a surprise. In fact, L has already filled out most of the necessary paperwork.

And he's not even supposed to know yet. But he does, of course he does. Raye has always been an open book, and L prefers him that way.

"L?"

L pretends to have only just noticed him.

"Yes, R?"

The older man rubs at the bridge of his nose, frowning deeply, like he'd rather be anywhere other than here and now.

He is momentarily grateful that Rae's been quiet recently. Moments such as these are moderately more difficult when accompanied by the Shinigami's inappropriate comments and clever threats.

Raye stands where he is, fists snapping open and closed, for a good few minutes. Then he reaches into his jacket, retrieves a single sheaf of paper, and lets it flutter down to L's desk.

"My resignation," he blurts. "I can't do this any more."

"I see," L says, reaching for his own stack of paper. "In that case, we'll need you to sign this confidentiality agreement, stating that you will not discuss what you have learned on any of these cases. I also need you to re-sign a lease to allow you to continue to live with your wife here. And this form here authorises us to modify your personal computer and phone to prevent you from accessing our files. Oh, and I would also like you to sign this form, stating that you will not try to contact your wife when she is away from base unless you have my express permission that such contact will not endanger that particular mission."

R gapes at him, and then snorts.

"You knew. Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you are a very intelligent man," L states. "And I will be sad to lose you."

"No you won't," R says. "Because you don't. Feel. Anything. You are a machine. And that's why I'm quitting."

_A machine?_

_Yes, I suppose I am. A well-oiled machine, methodical and clever. Indestructible._

_Yes._

That's exactly what he wants to be.

* * *

Hospitals are generally unpleasant places. Blindingly white walls, little privacy, the stench of vomit and blood and urine and industrial-strength lavender floor cleaner. Harried nurses and the thrashing of the epileptic patient two doors down. Pushy doctors. Invasive procedures.

All of that, of course, is only for the poor. The very, very rich can hire a team of impeccably-trained surgeons and superbly compassionate nurses right into the comfort of their own mansion.

And so Shingo Midou wakes up in his own bed, groggy and aching, but oddly comfortable.

"You're alive," Namikawa says croakily.

Midou looks down.

"You have your fingers on my pulse," he points out. "You must have known I was alive. Damn, what happened to my voice?"

He's trying to talk normally, but what's coming out is barely a whisper.

"They had to operate on your throat," the other man replies. "The surgeon said you might suffer a bit of laryngeal damage. It should heal over time."

He strokes his thumb over Midou's lower lip. He seems more shaken than usual. Feeling bold, Midou puts a hand on the back of his head and pulls him down.

No one is watching them. Probably.

"It was bad, huh? Did we win?"

Namikawa smiles, finally.

"All that remains of Yotsuba is you and I," he says happily.

Midou grins back at him. Finally.

Things should be bearable now. They should be okay.

"Good," he says. "Did L saymfhg."

Namikawa pushes two fingers into his mouth.

"Shh," he says. "You talk too much."

Outside, the sun is high in the sky. The city is bustling. And some people, at least, are safe.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ I am sorry this took so ridiculously long to finish and publish. no more long involved plots for a little while, I promise. also, I have become incredibly sick of the word 'Yotsuba'.

+ thank you.

+ eventually, this fic will be a lot more soft and fluffy than it is right now.


	15. Invisible

notes/warnings

+ swearing

+ lots of percentages. seriously.

+ I don't own anyone (well, except Jasmine, but like, who cares) but since I've mentioned a lot of other fictional characters in one scene, I should probably acknowledge them. Lady Macbeth is from _The Tragedy of Macbeth_ by William Shakespeare. Catherine Earnshaw is from _Wuthering Heights_ by Emily Bronte. _Sherlock Holmes_ belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And Jane Marple is from _Miss Marple_ series by Agatha Christie. Everyone else is from Death Note. Butchering of characters by me.

* * *

**Invisible**

R doesn't actually _go_ anywhere, of course. He lives in the complex, with N, and starts picking up small jobs as a freelance detective. L knows that most of his work is mundane, ordinary stuff, and his fees are comparatively low, as they should be.

R is no L, after all.

Still, he's civil enough when he runs into any of them in the hall, and he hasn't attempted to access any secure files, so L is happy to keep him around for as long as he wants.

Eventually, of course, either N will go, or R will come back.

Seventy-seven point five one percent, and twenty-two point four nine percent repectively. It is most likely that they will both tire of sleuthing and finally move on with their lives.

L, on the other hand, is never happier than when he's solving cases.

And he reminds himself of this. Constantly.

* * *

A few months of nothing go by. N occasionally brings him a report on one of the more outstanding difficult cases going on in the world.

"This one is from the county Clare. There have been sixteen cases of rape in the past five days. All of the victims have been male, blonde, and between the ages of thirty and forty. Evidence suggests all were attacked by the same individual, possibly a woman."

"Five days?" L queries. "The local authorities have exhausted all their resources in five days?"

"I don't know," she concedes, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "But people are panicking. No one feels safe. Look, this is a copy of a message the chief of police published in most of the British papers yesterday."

L takes the scrap of paper from her, dangles it in front of him, and scans it briefly, picking out the key lines.

_...most insidious and prolific series of crimes since the turn of the..._

_...baffled even the most capable and experienced detectives..._

_...believe our only hope now is the detective commonly known as..._

_...if anyone knows where he is, or is capable of getting into contact with L, please, contact this number_.

L scratches the back of his head.

"How absolutely pathetic," he says, letting the paper drop to the floor. "Do people not realise that I'm just one person? I can't save everyone."

_You could have a damn good crack at it,_ his Near voice tells him. _But why should you? This is just laziness and cowardice._

"That's true," N agrees. "But it seems like they could really use your help right now."

L gathers another forkful of his apricot cheesecake.

"Please contact one of the journalists for the local paper in Clare," he instructs her. "Give them this message. _When the police force starts to rely on celebrity detectives in lieu of attempting cases themselves, that is also criminal_."

"L!" she says sharply. "Those people must be already frightened, and you want me to distribute _this_?"

"Yes," L muses. "On second thoughts, please have Watari deliver a copy of that statement to every police station in Clare. The public are probably shaken enough by the incompetence that clearly underpins the first message."

"I was thinking more that they'd feel abandoned," she says through gritted teeth. She's been much shorter with him since her husband left. L thinks she partially blames him.

Incorrectly, of course. He is in no way responsible for R's life decisions.

"In that case, please add this. _L will contact you if and when you truly need her help._"

"Her?"

L smiles to himself.

"We must keep up the enigma after all. In communications with the general public, I tend to refer to myself as being of either gender, as well as from various cultural and religious backgrounds. I also believe I once purported to be a paraplegic."

"And what about that time you claimed to be Batman?" Rae says boredly. "Or was that _really_ just a rumour?"

"Fine," N says. "Understood. I will do that immediately."

"Thank you," L says politely.

* * *

He listens to her footsteps getting fainter down the hall, and then turns to his Shinigami.

"For the record - not that _you_ could be considered as any sort of viable record - but for the record, I have yet to announce myself as a fictional character."

"I see," Rae says thoughtfully. "To be honest, if I had to assign you a fictional character, I'd go for...hmm. Lady Macbeth. Or maybe Catherine Earnshaw."

L rolls his eyes.

"Do those two have anything in common? Other than both being female, and dying tragically?"

The god of death grins at him nastily, clearly indicating it thought that both traits fitted L perfectly.

"I mean, couldn't I at least be Sherlock Holmes?" L asks idly.

"Miss Marple, and that's my final offer," Rae maintains.

"Done," L says, smirking a little. "In my next letter to the public, I shall confess to being Miss Marple."

_You're being very silly,_ Near-voice informs him.

And it's right. He is. He's...hell, he's _fooling around_ with Rae. Like _children_. And yes, it's true that none of the others are bothering to converse with him much, mostly because he chastises them for it. But that is as it should be. Conversation is frivolous. Now, _he's_ being frivolous. He doesn't need a Shinigami to talk to. He needs to _work_. Hone his mind. Train his body. Calculate and pre-empt.

He needs to be L.

_That's right_.

"No more of this," he says firmly. "I need to work."

"Whatever," Rae says airily. "Some of us don't need to slave away every hour of the day to win our battles."

"I don't see you winning any battles," L remarks. The death note is hidden under his shirt, containing only Rae's name and a scribbled cupcake.

"That's what you th..." the Shinigami trails off and spins around suddenly, to face the door.

"What is it?" L asks, peering through the gaps between its ribs. The doorway is empty.

"I thought there was someone there," Rae says. "I'm sure there was."

"You were mistaken," L says seriously, a comment which the death god seems to be completely unprepared for.

"Yeah," Rae says, sounding unnerved. "I suppose I was."

* * *

The two-year mark comes and goes. Christmas comes and goes. The Penbers go off by themselves for the holiday. Last year, the two of them had a little mini-party with Matsuda. They played board games and burned lots of bakery products and laughed at nothing. Even L had joined in for a little while.

This year, L spends Christmas with M, sitting in the office with the lights off and alternating between work and staring stonily out the window. Which is a perfectly appropriate and effective way to spend what is nothing more than another day, and he doesn't miss Matsuda even once.

Really.

L accepts another case after that. A serial killer again, this one targeting attractive teenage girls. He goes to France, then Russia, then France again during his research, and the murderer's methods are impeccable enough that the case is something of a challenge.

Even so, he wraps up the whole thing in fifteen days.

Three more girls die during that time. Their deaths were useful. He could not have caught the killer without them.

If one isn't ruthlessly clinical, then one is prone to human error. Emotion-based error.

L doesn't make errors. He makes calculated sacrifices.

Rae screams at him that he's as bad as the murderer.

The parents don't ask for an apology, and L doesn't offer one.

_That's just the way it goes. _

_

* * *

_

They stay in Vancouver for a little while, chasing a big-time fraudster known only as 'Mack'. The case is really too easy for them, but L accepted it for tactical reasons. He chewed through a lot of funds bringing down Yotsuba, and the government is willing to pay a hefty sum for Mack's capture.

N comes to him on the second day.

"Can Raye come out here for a night or two?" she asks politely. "We've been away from home a lot recently, and he -"

"No," says L.

A resignation is a resignation.

N stares at him incredulously.

"May I ask why?"

L taps out a few more words on his keyboard before he answers.

"No, you may not."

L watches her expression flicker between disbelief and anger.

"You're really an asshole, did you know that?" she asks quietly.

"I tell him every day," Rae informs her, ineffectually.

"Try to avoid bringing personalities into our working relationship, please," L murmurs. He really has better things to do right now.

N slams her fist down on his desk.

"Goddamnit!" she shouts.

"Please keep your voice down, this room is not particularly -"

"_Don't_ shush me! You're going too far, L. Do you hear me? You're going _too far_."

L doesn't understand what she means. He's a genius, and a detective. He always goes exactly far enough, and no more.

He always wins.

Out of the corner of his eye, L sees someone stick their head around the doorway.

"Now look what you've done," he mutters, turning slowly to face the newcomer. "You've brought M into the..."

There's no-one there. And when he runs the few steps between his desk and the door and checks the hallway, there's no-one there, either.

"You too, huh?" Rae asks.

* * *

It doesn't happen again until two weeks later, when Watari is driving him to downtown London in order to purchase approximately half a sweetshop and an entire bakery.

The trip is uneventful until they pass one particular block - on the left side of Meppeldorp street - and L is suddenly hit with a tremendous _sensation_ of being observed. Monitored. Spied upon.

But the street is empty. Has always been empty.

Hasn't it?

"Did you see someone there?" Rae asks warily, pointing at where the apparent spectre had been.

_Either I'm getting paranoid_, he thinks grimly. _Or someone is following me. And doing a damn good job of it_.

Ninety-six point six three percent chance he's just paranoid.

Of course, last time he thought someone was watching him, it ended in him being glued to an evil Shinigami overlord. So he's not prepared to disregard the other option entirely.

"No," he tells Rae honestly. "I didn't see anything."

* * *

R passes him in the corridor, presumably on his way home for the night.

L knows he's presently investigating a couple of possibly corrupt police officers. He also already knows that the whole case is based on nothing, and that R will unfailingly find them to be innocent and disappoint the erratic whistleblower who reported them.

He knows, but only through his own research. Not because R's told him anything.

R tries awkwardly to pretend he doesn't see L until they're almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Then he gives a cold, uncertain smile.

L ignores him.

* * *

Conversations with Matsuda aside, the possibility of other supernatural, mythical, or religious creatures is always at the back of L's mind.

_If there are death notes, then what else is there? Are there gods from other religions?_

_Who operates hell, anyway? Who decides who goes free and who stays?_

There is clearly some sort of intelligent design to the afterlife. There's no other explanation for any of the things that have happened.

Which means, theoretically, there _ought_ to be someone he can talk to about Mello. But who is the someone? Hades? Pluto? St Peter? Allah? And even if he found out their identity, how would he track them down to bargain for his protégé?

_And Mello aside_, he thinks hastily, before he gets unnecessarily sad, _what else is out there? Are there other invisible things?_

Should he be concerned?

_No_, L thinks. _I've got enough to worry about with my own invisible things, right now_.

In three months time, they'll be exactly halfway through the five years. Rae seems to be resting for the moment - not trying too hard - but L is certain that once it realises time is running out, it will pull out all the stops. And when that time comes, L needs to be ready. He needs to be psychologically impermeable, physically strong, and mentally unshakeable.

In short, he just needs to keep going exactly the way he's going, and everything will be fine.

All thanks to his inner Near voice.

_That's right_.

* * *

"_Do you, Jasmine Michelle Manna, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?"_

_The sun is too hot through the stained-glass window, your suit doesn't fit properly, there's glitter in your eyes, and you just want to go home. You'd rather be kidnapped and tortured again than stay here and witness this._

_But he asked you to be here, so here you are. Trapped in this place until they drive off into the sunset in their honeymoon car. The church is packed. They only invited friends and family, but Matt is pretty popular, and everyone in the world seems to adore Jasmine. She looks like a princess with her pale, bare shoulders and her hair tied into an elegant and sparkly knot._

_She looks right at you when she says 'I do'. Gloating, you're certain. She can't really be as sweet as everyone tells you._

_But right here and now, you kinda hope she is. For his sake. As much as you fantasise about him dropping her like a tonne of admittedly attractive bricks and spending the rest of his life hanging out with you, you don't ever, ever want him to be hurt._

_And he loves her, so. So you'll try and be as nice to her as you can. You'll continue to pretend you don't hate her. You might as well make an effort for the Jeevases. They're the only people in the world who care what you think, after all._

_Jeevases. That's what they are, now. His and hers. A matching set._

_It makes you a little sick._

_You can feel the chocolate buds melting in your shirt pocket. You know that every single person in the church knows you really shouldn't be here. You're not best man material. You're not 'best' at anything._

_"I do," says Matt, and you realise, suddenly, that the priest must have read him his vows while you were daydreaming. _

_You missed the whole thing. He's smiling at Jasmine. You love him with all your black, pathetic, cold little heart. You'd do anything for him. He is your world, and now someone else is his world, and that's exactly as it should be._

_He'll probably never hug you again._

_You stare out the window, at the brilliant orange sunset. You can see the horizon, and you wonder if there's anything else out there. If there are other planets, other dimensions, other times and places. You wonder if there's an afterlife. If there's a hell._

_Later, when it's all over, when the crowds file out of the church and into cars and then into the big fancy restaurant that Jasmine's parents insisted on paying for. When you've squashed into Dwayne's beat-up, smelly buggy because no one else wanted to ride with you, and when you've discovered there's nothing chocolate at the buffet. When you've dragged yourself into the upmarket co-ed bathroom to unsuccessfully try and clean the sticky brown stain off your shirt._

_When you've forever held your peace._

_When it's all over, Jasmine finds you._

_"Look at you," she says, smiling radiantly. "You're a mess, Mihael."_

_She's referring to your clothes, not your personality. But the phrase applies to both._

_"It's my own fault," you mutter. "You don't need to worry about it."_

_But she's already fishing a lacy white handkerchief out of her pocket and wetting it in the sink. She's a good woman._

_You know that._

_Thankfully, you're spared the mortifying experience of her cleaning you up like you're five years old, because Matt sweeps into the bathroom, twirls her around and presses her against the wall._

_"There you are, honey."_

_"Here I am," she beams at him, and then she giggles. Matt kisses her deeply, and you start edging hopefully out of the room. He turns to you as an afterthought._

_"Thank you for coming, man," he says, expression flushed and earnest._

_"No problem," you say, thickly. You've been at the reception long enough. You could leave now and no one would notice. People would probably be grateful if you left now. _

_But then they grab you, a hand each, and you're pinned between them._

_"You should come and dance with us," Jasmine croons. "It'll be fun."_

_Actually, you can't imagine anything worse. You'd prefer to drop dead then and there and spend the rest of eternity in the fiery pits of hell._

_Sometimes the horizon seems so small. It's been one of those days. You're doubting reality. You do that, when things get really bad. Near once explained that it was because you have at least nine separate psychiatric disorders._

_"Do you think there's anything else out there?" you blurt out ineloquently. "Other than this world, I mean?"_

_Matt blinks at the non-sequiter. He squeezes your shoulder, and part of your melts inside._

_He's hers now. You can never forget that._

_And it's not like he was ever, ever yours._

_Your gaze drops from their faces. Jasmine's dress is made of satin and lace. It perfectly accentuates the curve of her breasts, and pulls in neatly at her waist._

_"I don't know," he says brightly. "I'm a little caught up in right now, to be honest."_

_"That's right," Jasmine agrees. "Why don't you try a little harder, Mihael?"_

_You're not really sure what she's talking about. You're staring at the way her dress fits snugly over her stomach. More snugly than it did five months ago, when she first tried it on.  
_

_You don't want to know. You really don't want to know._

_

* * *

_

It's not as if Rae has let up on him, far from it. It keeps coming to him with terrorists and murderers, always cleverly and thoughtfully selected so that the world would seem to benefit greatly from their sudden death.

It has also taken to prefacing everything with 'I know you're evil now, but...'.

He's not evil. He's not. Both Rae and N make unpleasant remarks about the dire-sounding cases he turns down, but he's always picked and chosen his jobs. He refuses to become just another freelance detective, just another consultant. He needs to save his strength for the _really_ terrible, impossible things.

Sometimes, Rae still bothers him a little. But he keeps telling himself that it's completely, utterly wrong, and shouldn't be paid any attention. He knows full well it's only trying to make him use the death note for its own means, anyway.

_It_ is the evil one, not him. And it's clever.

It points out the terminal patients when he passes through a hospital, pontificating on an exhausted and ancient-looking woman who is sobbing and begging her nurse to 'jut let her go'.

"Still no," L mouths.

_Wouldn't a dying person be considered to be 'on death row' and therefore invalid in your quest, anyway?_ he wonders.

"You think you're so tough, don't you?" Rae says bitterly. "You think you're completely oblivious to pain and suffering now."

Not oblivious. Just sensible.

"That's okay," the Shinigami continues, grinning suddenly. "I know you. You can't keep up the tough-guy act forever. You'll crumble, soon, and when you do, I'll be right here."

L smiles to himself.

He's never going to crumble. Never.

* * *

They wind up in Washington on the heels of an international terrorist. N manages to catch the woman entirely by herself, and jokes that she doesn't need L any more.

L, purely out of curiosity, goes to visit the Tracking Library again.

He's only been there twice before. Most recently, he went just after Mello died but failed to turn up on L's doorstep. It was then that he discovered that both Mello and Light were in hell.

And the first time he went, well. That was to check up on _her_.

She was in hell too. He rested easier after that.

But, the thing is, now he knows that people have a chance. That someone in hell might be released. And that's both heartening and frightening.

Not that he's overcome with emotion. Far from it. He simply wishes to be able to plan ahead effectively.

So he goes to the library again. To check. Because if any of them have been redeemed, he should probably know.

And maybe he should check up on Matsuda, too. For posterity's sake. Nothing more.

The library isn't situated in the best part of town, and he sees the filthy little alleyways and slumlike buildings bordering on the grounds as soon as Watari drops him off.

"Please come back for me in half an hour," L instructs, before closing the door. He heads for the ice-creamery next door. He needs sugar before he can do anything else.

"I don't understand," Rae tells him. "Why have you come here? Has someone else died that you want to know about?"

L glances at it.

"I wish to find out if those I know to be in hell continue to be in hell," he says succinctly.

"Uh, I think hell is pretty permanent," Rae informs him, as if he's being stupid. "It is hell, after all."

_So there are things that even you don't know_, L notes. _How interesting. All of that boasting about how the king is able to save humans from hell, and you don't even know about redemption?_

_Why would the Shinigami keep their future king in the dark?_

_Another test, perhaps?_

"Maybe you are right," L concedes. "Still, we are here. I might as well check."

"I think you're crazy," Rae says, narrowing it's eyes at him. "No, wait. I think you're cheating."

"Cheating?"

Rae folds its arms sulkily.

"You really don't know anything, do you? The Tracking Library is a special zone. Only humans can go in or out."

L stares up at it.

"You can't come in?"

"What excellent powers of deduction you have," the death god sneers. "Yes, that's correct."

"Maybe I should just spend the next two and a half years in there," L says thoughtfully. "Some peace and quiet would be nice. Congratulations, by the way. It's our halfway anniversary. I didn't get you anything."

"Dick," Rae says under its breath.

"You really _have_ been here too long. You're learning human curse words."

L stops murmuring under his breath for a moment and turns to the perplexed-looking ice cream vendor.

"I'd like a triple, please. Mint chocolate, toffee, and bubblegum. And extra strawberries. And extra nuts. And extra fudge. And extra chocolate topping. And extra caramel topping. And a spoon. And a wafer. Actually, can I have two ice-creams?"

The vendor stares at him with his mouth open, before rolling his eyes, muttering something about 'bloody gothic kids', and scooping his dessert.

"I love American ice cream," L comments, mostly to Rae. "It's just the right balance of sweet and creamy. I could eat it all day, every day, for the rest of my life, and not regret a thing."

"I will remind you of that when you're morbidly obese."

"Why? Is that likely to happen in the next thirty months?"

Before L can actually procure his ice-cream, he's interrupted by a wheezing, terrified sort of scream from the nearby alleyway.

"_Now_ what?" Rae grumbles.

"One moment," L tells the vendor, and goes to investigate.

He finds an elderly-looking man curled up on the footpath. Beside him is an overturned wheelchair, one wheel still spinning uselessly in the air. Beneath him is a trickle of blood, and there is a large gash on his forehead.

A few seconds later, L spots the club on the ground by his feet.

"What happened?" L asks him, eye slowly scanning the area. There are throngs of people milling around the library. His attackers could have gone in any direction.

"I don't understand," he wheezes. "Th-they said they w-w-wouldn't hurt me if I gave them all my m-money."

He's shaking, and his eyes look absolutely terrified. L shakes his head.

A petty mugging certainly isn't up to his calibre.

"I'll call an ambulance for you," he offers. "And the police. One moment."

He steps further into the alley to help block out the noise, turns his back on the old man, and pulls out his mobile phone.

Approximately twenty five seconds later, something big and blunt connects with his skull, and the whole word goes black.

* * *

When L wakes up, he's being dragged out of an unfamiliar car by two broad-shouldered, suit-clad men. He deduces from the way his body doesn't react to his brain that he's also been sedated.

No reason to panic. He's trained himself in techniques of still being functional while being chemically impaired.

"So, not really a hurt little old man, are you?" he slurs, as the person in question emerges from the drivers' seat. The wound on his face has magically disappeared, and he looks younger than L originally estimated, maybe in his late fifties.

_Damn_.

L has no excuse, none at all. He should have picked up on this. He should have picked up on all of it, it should have been easy. The clues were all there, the way the blood didn't clot right, the angle of the wheelchair, the way the man spoke. He should have picked up on it.

_Too preoccupied with Mello, and Rae, and the Shyster, weren't you_?

He should never be preoccupied. Never.

"I don't understand," he says, as diplomatically as he can manage. "Why have you abducted me?"

He needs to know who they think he is. His hands are bound behind his back, quite adeptly. No easy way to undo the ties, even for an escape artist such as himself.

Which means he's dealing with a professional.

"An eye for an eye," the man says simply, and L is momentarily stunned to have his own line fed back to him. "Take him inside, gentlemen."

The building is huge, twenty-seven stories, and not one single sign of life. No cars in the parking lot. No lights on in any of the windows. Nobody hurrying around the lobby. Empty. Dead. Abandoned.

And there isn't another building within half a mile of it.

As expected, then.

He presses his elbow to his jeans pocket. If he can just hit the right button to make a call to Watari, he ought to be fine. But his captor whips around as soon as he moves, and snarls at him.

"I don't think so," he says acidly, grabbing L's phone and throwing it to the ground. L watches it skitter across the polished floor.

"Good god, Lawliet. What have you gotten yourself into this time?" Rae enquires cheerfully.

_Yes, I bet you're enjoying this. Let me guess, you're going to try and convince me to use the death note to save myself?_

_Well, that's not going to work._

The old man pulls a blindfold roughly over his eyes. L needs to know why he was targeted. There is only a zero point eight zero percent chance they know who he really is, but there's a thirteen point four seven percent chance they've connected him with L, somehow.

They march him up a long flight of stairs. If the average estimation of two landings per floor is assumed, then he winds up on floor twenty-two. Then he's pulled in a new direction, onto soft carpeted floor, in a darker area - a small room, probably - that smells musty and disused.

Blinded and sedated. This ought to be a new challenge.

Of course, there's always the off-chance he might die.

"If I were you, I'd be worried about being violated right about now," Rae says gleefully. "This all seems to be meticulously thought out."

_You joke about such things, do you? _ L thinks. _And yet you pretend to care for the victims of crime. _

_Even if you genuinely thought I was evil, believing that it is okay to wish evil upon people - simply because they are also evil - makes you even worse. You ought to know that._

_Or maybe you don't understand the story of Light Yagami as well as you claimed_.

L hears the faint _shing_ of a pocket knife being opened, and feels a cord being cut behind his back. His hands are momentarily freed, separated, and shoved against the wall, immediately fastened into what feels like stainless steel shackles.

They didn't kill him when he was unconscious, so they must want something from him. And they haven't removed his belt. He still has those two advantages, if nothing else.

"That's it," says an unfamiliar voice, probably one of the goons. "Everything is in place, boss."

"You may leave," he hears the older man mutter, and two sets of heavy footsteps make their way back to the door.

_So he doesn't want to talk in front of the hired help, _L surmises. _Then this is thirty point two seven percent likely to be a personal matter._

L tries to recall the older man's face with as much clarity as possible. He has a neatly-trimmed goatee, grey hair, and a pointed but relatively handsome face. Brown eyes. Based on his accent, he probably grew up in or around New York. The clothes he's wearing are expensive and tailor-fitted, so he clearly has money.

He is also entirely unfamiliar. The more L turns over what he knows, the more he's convinced that he's never met this guy before.

Which means nothing. He hasn't met a lot of his clients. And he hasn't personally approached or contacted a lot of the criminals he's arrested.

But still, it's unsettling.

And the sun is still up. It probably hasn't been half an hour. The others won't be missing him yet.

"Who are you?" he asks again, when he's sure they're alone.

The man takes a few light steps towards him and stops.

"Well, well," he says, disliking radiating from every syllable. "What's wrong? Could it be you're in a situation where you can't identify the bad guy, _L_?"

"Elle? Isn't that a girl's name?" L asks. It could still be a trap. This guy is unlikely to be one hundred percent certain of his identity.

He hears the slap more than feels it. He trained himself to be impervious to pain a long time ago. The side of his face heats up and stings.

"Don't play games with me," the man growls. "I _know_ who you are. You're the detective known as L. Supposedly elusive, but I have to say, you were pretty damn easy to find. I suppose you weren't expecting anyone to have _inside_ information?"

Inside information.

L runs through the possibilities quickly.

_There is a thirty-seven point nine one percent chance that R has betrayed me. He has significant principles, but he's angry, and may no longer feel any loyalty towards the team._

_The likelihood of treachery from N is ten point eighty-three. Someone would need to convince her that their cause was of a greater good than mine, and that would be difficult._

_M is only one point zero eight percent likely to betray me. He would only be swayed if he was convinced that someone was or had access to Mello. Obviously, he wouldn't be easily fooled._

_There is a point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero five percent chance that Watari has betrayed me. Not negligible, but close._

_Which leaves Soichiro as the only other one who knows my identity. Unless someone new has died. Near, perhaps, or Aizawa._

_Or have we simply made a mistake? Has someone tapped into our network, or traced our phone calls? _

"Have you been following me?" L asks out loud.

"What, didn't you even notice?" the man jeers. He sounds a little like Rae.

"It's been this guy all along?" the Shinigami asks. It sounds a little disappointed.

"In Vancouver?" L probes. "And in London? You've been following me for months?"

"I've been following you for about four hours," the man says. "Guess you must have a lot of people after you."

"Hmm," Rae says.

"All right," L says softly. "Presuming I am L, what is your quarrel with me?"

The man hits something wooden and hollow, probably with his fist.

"My daughter," he grits, sounding as if the words cost him dearly.

_Hm. So it was a loved one. That's why you don't seem familiar._

"What did I do to your daughter?"

Honestly, it seems like _everyone_ wants revenge on him, these days. It's crude, and almost boring. If he were a lesser man, it would be disheartening. The only people he harms are those who have broken the law. Yet there's always someone complaining because the mass-murderer who just got a life sentence was their dearly loved grandmother, or because he didn't catch the terrorist in time to save their brother.

Everyone is so selfish.

"It's what you _didn't_ do!" the man shouts, and L can imagine his face reddening, a vein in his forehead starting to throb. He's angry. "You let her _die_!"

"Unfortunately, in the field of detective work, innocent people are bound to die," L says. He considers this for a moment and then adds. "However, I am sorry for your loss."

The man hits him properly then, right in the stomach. L doubles over a little, reflexively, struggling for breath.

"Bound to die? _Bound to die?_ I see. And you won't help anyone, is that right? Even if they _work_ for you?"

L hesitates.

_She's worked for me?_

"Who are you?" he asks again.

"Marvin," the man says, barely a whisper, right next to L's face. His breath reeks of cigarettes and sourness. "Marvin Kenwood. And _her_ name... was Mary."

"Wedy," L says, finally making sense of it. "You're Wedy's father."

"That's right," the man says acidly. "Wedy's father. My little girl looked _up_ to you. She did everything you ever asked for her. She risked her _life_ for you, over and over again. And where did it get her? In the end, you couldn't even be _arsed_ to phone."

Marvin, he knows, is a thief too. Taught Wedy everything she ever knew. Neither of them have ever been caught by the police.

"But me, I sat with her," he continues, his voice dangerously quiet. "I held her hand. I helped them bandage where the pieces of her _head_ had been shot off. I was there. The whole time, I was there. Unlike _you_. Some boss you turned out to be. You disgust me."

"I know how you feel," Rae says, sympathetically.

"She never woke up," L says, frowning. "Why would it have mattered who was there?"

"It mattered to her _memory_," Marvin rages, hitting him again. "It mattered to _her_. Her boss, her own boss, who's cause she _died_ for. Twice!"

"She made her own decisions," L gasps. "You're angry because you're grieving, and you want someone to blame. I understand, but this is _pointless._"

"You don't understand, do you, you bastard? You don't know what it's _like_ to have kids."

Briefly, treacherously, L thinks of Mail...of M.

L hears two rapid _thumps_, and deduces that Marvin has fallen to his knees. Then, L would probably be able to kick him from here. But with no way to remove the blindfold, that would be fruitless.

Better to keep him talking, then. The others will notice, sooner or later.

"I was so happy when I found out she was here, with me," Marvin whispers. "I...it doesn't seem like that long ago when she was a child. I raised her on my own, you know. Her mother left us and married a Russian man before she was six years old."

_Six years old_.

It's not an age L likes to think about.

"She was such a smart kid," he continues. "She always used to bring me home things she'd stolen from school. When she was twelve, she drove home in the principal's car. No one ever caught her. That's how good she was."

_I don't really see how this is relevant to anything at all_, L thinks.

"Even as an adult, she looked after me. Oh, she drew me a picture of you. Said to contact this man if anything happened to her and I was in trouble. She thought _so much_ of you. You monster."

"I see," L says. He wishes he could put his thumb against his lips. As it is, his deductive powers are down by thirteen point one five percent because he can't hunch.

But his legs are free.

"No you don't," Marvin says sadly. "But you will. I'm going to show you how much it hurts to lose the one you love."

_Torture? Really? I wonder if you'll be as good at it as Watari_.

"An eye for an eye," the man repeats. "I'm going to take someone valuable from _you_."

_Someone valuable? Well, it would be a shame to lose N. I'm sixty-seven point nine three percent certain you won't be able to get your hands on M no matter what you do._

_But to be perfectly honest, no one is really valuable to me. _

_And love? I don't love anyone. I'm L._

"Of course, based on what Mary told me, there is only one person in the whole world that you value. So."

_How naive,_ L muses. _I do not value myself above everyone else. _

_Do I?_

"I'll be doing the world a favour, anyway, by getting rid of self-serving scum like you," Marvin says vehemently.

"Because you believe that, as a criminal, you are in some way morally superior to me?" L queries calmly.

"_I_ don't kill people."

_Not all thieves stay thieves_, L thinks.

_Shyster_. _Blood. That boy._

_Electric chair._

He shakes his head.

_She's not here, she's in hell. She'll always be in hell. It's over. It was over a long time ago. Stop thinking about it._

_Get a grip on yourself_, his inner Near voice commands.

Yes. He is fine. He is, effectively, gripped.

And also shackled to a wall. Which is quickly becoming a problem, because there is a forty-nine point two zero percent chance that Marvin doesn't want to bargain, that Marvin simply wants him damaged. Or dead.

"Fine. What do you intend to do to me?"

"Oh...I'm not going to do anything," Marvin says, suddenly smug. "I'm just going to mosey on out of here and go home."

Sudden changes in mood. He is manic. He's grieving. He's not really in charge of his own actions. He's M, trying to blow up the Tracking Library all over again.

And there's nothing L can do for him.

"But, you see, the situation itself is going to put you in a bit of trouble," Marvin continues. "See, this whole building is rigged with _just_ enough explosives to bring the whole thing down. The grounds outside are big enough that no innocent people should be hurt. I'm no psychopath, after all."

He gives a hysterical little laugh that belies his last statement.

_This is what happens when people are ruled by their emotions_, L thinks, pityingly.

"When are they set to go off?"

"In fifteen minutes," Marvin replies. "Of course, since you're such a genius, I'm sure you'll have no trouble freeing yourself and escaping. Or maybe your posse will come and save you. Or maybe not."

_In fifteen minutes? _ L thinks. _No, I don't think they will._

_And neither do you_.

Marvin pats his shoulder.

"Goodnight, L," he says, and L can hear the smile in his voice. "Good luck!"

He hears the door slam, and he knows he is alone.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ sorry my updating has gotten so slow - I don't seem to be able to churn this drivel out quite so easily any more. aiming for one update a week.

+ thank you, thank you.


	16. Queen

notes/warnings

+ more character death.

+ more swearing.

+ more retarded writing!

+ I always think that people who include associated music with fic are inherently obnoxious. and I never miss a chance to be obnoxious. so.

music: _marlene on the wall_, by suzanne vega.

* * *

**Queen**

Well, not completely alone.

"You deserve this," Rae says darkly. "That man is absolutely right."

A minute has passed. Fourteen to go. L has an excellent internal clock.

"Because I'm evil and wrote your name in the death note?"

"Because you _let innocent people die_," Rae says emphatically. "And worse, you don't _care_."

"If I let people die simply by not saving them, then surely every other person alive is also responsible for letting them die, since they too failed to save said person."

"No," Rae says. "_You_ have the brains. _You_ have the resources. _You_ are supposed to be justice. Some justice. Ha! The world will be better off without you."

"But then you wouldn't get to break me," L argues, smiling a little. "And you wouldn't want that."

"I think you're overestimating how badly I want to be king," Rae says, and even L can tell that it's lying through its teeth.

"I think not."

Silence stretches between them for a little while. The sedation is getting heavier. The shackles have no faults or weaknesses.

L is running out of options.

Twelve minutes to go.

"Rae?"

"Mm?"

"Am I going to die?"

The Shinigami snorts. L's not actually sure how it manages, considering it has no nose.

"Like I'm going to tell you."

L tilts his head. Rae must have seen how long he was going to live before it gave him the death note. It must _know_.

"Well, it seems silly that you'd be assigned to me if I were destined to die before the five years was up. I believe I was told that someone's lifespan can only be shortened by a person or Shinigami using the death note. I doubt another human could use a death note against me, since I am generally incognito, which means that the only thing that could cause me to die in this situation is another Shinigami with a usable note."

"There are plenty of Shinigami in the world," Rae says comfortably. "I'm sure someone as careful as you would have lots of nice juicy years left to their life. You _are_ a perfect target."

"Perhaps you are sick of me," L theorises. "Have you set up one of your death god friends to kill me like this?"

"As revenge for your threats to stay in the library, you mean?"

"Precisely. A Shinigami practical joke, if you will."

But if that is the case, L is sure Rae won't go through with it and have him killed. The god of death is hellbent on spending the full term with him, as long as it takes.

It hates him, and that makes him a little safer.

Ten minutes left.

L's left hand twitches. He hasn't had sugar in far too long. The whole building is going to blow up.

He...he doesn't want to die again. _That_ is not part of his plan.

Although, if he goes through the whole death process again, and can remain more conscious of it, will there be a weak point? A passage? A detour? Something through which he can make his way to Mello and drag him back here?

Perhaps not.

"The others won't know you're missing yet, will they?" Rae asks, and L catches a telltale hint of bewilderment in its voice.

_Aha. This has nothing to do with you. You haven't set this up at all. You're wondering how I'm supposed to survive._

In that case.

"Is there anything you can do for me?" L asks.

"I could tickle you," Rae leers.

"So helpful. Can you override another Shinigami trying to kill me, if you want to?"

"If it displeases me, sure. Right now, I have to say, I'm pretty amused."

"No, you aren't," L says with confidence. Rae's voice is approximately three iotas more bearable than usual. It's definitely preoccupied.

Rae pauses for a moment.

"You're right," it says, finally, voice back to the normal levels of unbearableness. "L...I can't predict this. I don't actually know what every other Shinigami is doing. It's not a power I have yet."

_I already know that_.

"I'm a little worried that this is where you're supposed to use the note," Rae says. "I'm not seeing any other way out of this."

"And if I kill people, that will stop the building from exploding?"

Rae is suddenly right next to him. L can hear the soft crackle of the flames in its chest.

"You can control someone for twenty minutes before they die," it says, voice soft and suggestive. "You could get Kenwood to drive back here and disarm the building. There would be more than enough time. But you'd need to do it soon. You only have a minute or so to decide."

"You realise you're only ever kind to me when there's an opportunity to convince me to use the note, right?"

L feels movement and ghostly hands on his stomach as the Shinigami retrieves the notebook from under his shirt.

"Come on," it says encouragingly. "Do you want to die? L? You've got nine minutes left!"

"No, but I don't want to kill, either."

"You're blindfolded, sedated, and chained to a wall," the death god points out, urgently. "You've got no goddamned chance without this book. Aren't you _listening _to me? Your life isn't guaranteed until the five years is up. You're going to die _today_ if you don't do something!"

"That would be unfortunate."

"That's the chemicals talking," Rae decides. "I know you. You want to live."

"I want to _win_."

"What's more important right now? Beating me, or beating Marvin? No one is going to suffer by me becoming king. But a lot of bad guys are going to go free if you die today. Think about _that_."

It...it has a point.

_No! Nothing will be gained from entering the same downward spiral that corrupted Light!_

"How do you expect me to write a name in this condition?" he asks.

"I'll write it for you!" Rae says, sounding practically desperate now. "Come on, just say yes."

"Then you would die," L says. "Because you would have lengthened my life."

"Doesn't work that way if we're overriding another death god."

_Just as I suspected. I'm not meant to die here._

His legs are free. His belt is still on. He's pretty flexible.

L jams his right foot against the wall and brings his left leg up hard, trying unsuccessfully to hit the belt.

"What the hell are you doing? Here, I'll hold the notebook to your hand, if you're so concerned about killing me. Which I doubt."

L tries again, focusing all of his strength into his leg, and fails. People are not meant to be able to connect their knee to their waist.

But he's not 'people'. He's a supersleuth.

The third time he jerks so violently that his muscles scream, and he _feels_ something click out of place in his hip. But it doesn't matter, because he makes contact.

"The belt," Rae says, maybe a little admiringly.

"Eight minutes," L says.

It won't be long enough.

* * *

Naomi is in the middle of a hot and wonderful shower when the intercom buzzes. She sighs.

"What is it, Watari?"

"L is in danger," is the reply.

Naomi stops, turns off the water, and is dried, dressed, and out the door in thirty seconds. L is never in danger.

Something has gone horribly wrong.

"What's happened?" she asks, as soon as she bursts into the first surveillance room.

"L's activated his belt," M deadpans, and points to his computer screen. "The GPS has tracked him to a building on the corner of Android Road and White Street. CCTV of that area shows a few people loading the place up with explosives about an hour prior to that."

"Holy fuck," Naomi says, pressing one hand to her mouth. "How far away is this place?"

M truly is a computer whiz. No-one should have got their hands on footage in under a minute.

"Five minutes by helicopter," M says. "Watari's on the launchpad as we speak. We need to go."

The drive to their makeshift launchpad takes under a minute, but her heart is racing by the time Watari comes in view. He looks especially old, and especially worried. Naomi knows he cares deeply for L.

L's never sounded his belt before. Never. Not once.

"It's my fault," Watari says as he helps her aboard. "I should have gone with him."

"He's a grown man," Naomi says, strapping herself in. She feels only a little better when Watari clambers into his seat and she feels the cabin vibrate under her.

M opens his laptop.

"Judging by the footage, this isn't something we can dismantle," he murmurs. "We need to get L out and evacuate the area."

"Right," Naomi says, glad for something to do. "I'll contact the local police."

She takes out her phone.

"There's another problem," M adds.

"What?"

"There are twenty-eight levels to this building, including the basement. And I honestly don't think we have very much time."

"But...but if that's true, then we're going to have to guess," she says, dismayed.

"I know," M says. "We're gambling with L's life."

"How can you say that so calmly?" she snaps. "God, I can't even think clearly right now. How did something like this happen?"

M shrugs and turns back to his computer.

_Brat_, she thinks, viciously.

Her phone vibrates in her hand, and she almost drops it.

"What is it?" M asks.

There's a message flashing up on the screen. Her eyes widen.

It's from L.

* * *

"We're running out of time," Rae says, unnecessarily. "The others need to get here soon, if they don't want-"

"They won't make it in time," L says quietly, knocking his head against the wall in frustration.

"What? Why not?"

Four minutes.

"The belt reports my location according to GPS tracking," L tells it. "Meaning that they now have my location in two dimensions."

"Which ought to lead them here, surely. If they're worried about you, and they're rushing..."

"And they don't know what floor I'm on."

"Of course," Rae says, snapping its fingers. "They have twenty-eight options."

"At most, they'll be able to check two or three floors before they need to evacuate," L whispers. He's tired. His throat hurts, some strange after-effect of whatever Marvin dosed him with.

"So your odds of surviving are about eleven percent," the Shinigami calculates.

"Yeah," L says heavily. "You know, I think there might be another death god involved in this. Because if I know N, she'll pick the top floors. That's where I'm mostly likely to be."

"I take it you have presumed that Jeevas will work out the situation before they arrive? So they'll know this building is loaded with explosives?"

"Of course."

L can hear the helicopter now, still a few hundred metres in the distance. He kicks at the carpet with his bare foot.

He doesn't want to die. Even if it means being rid of Rae, he doesn't want to die.

_Is that selfish?_

He doesn't want the others to get blown up, either. He hopes that M and N have behaved as predicted, and calculated the exact time of detonation. The last thing he wants is to take them with him.

But it's not as if he can warn them. Once they get close enough to hear him scream, he'll be drowned out by the noise from the blades.

He never should have drawn attention to his phone. If it were still with him - instead of lying abandoned downstairs - he'd be able to find a way to use it and contact them.

But no.

Damnit. He _hates_ depending on someone else. N had better not screw this up. If he wakes up in the next world beside the rest of his team, he's going to fire her.

"I can see it," Rae informs him. "They're here."

Adrenaline rushes through his veins, overriding the sedatives. L clenches his hands.

"They've only got seventy seconds! Where are they going?"

"I think you're right. I think they're going for the higher floors. But not the top floors, more like...twenty...four?"

"Don't guess," L snaps. "Tell me when they actually _stop_."

The roar of the rotors drowns out everything else, and he can barely hear Rae's voice. He's shaking, so angry, so, so angry. No one has any right to put him in this position.

They'll go upwards. They'll fail. He never should have called them. He's putting them through unnecessary risks for nothing.

"Take my blindfold off," he says softly. "Please. Please, I want to see one more time."

Rae doesn't respond, and L feels lost. Time is running out. He sucks in a breath and holds it.

Ten seconds later he hears the distinctive sound of someone driving a fist straight through a pane of glass. The two thumps that follow can only belong to a human who has just dropped feetfirst into the room.

This room, his room. The right floor.

_How?_

"You need to fuckin' warn us when you're going to get yourself fuckin' kidnapped," M informs him coldly, one bony hand closing over his elbow, warm and alive. "Now, let's get you fucking out of here."

* * *

The shackles are stainless steel, keyless, and utterly impenetrable. It takes M just thirty seconds to break through them. He pulls off L's blindfold as an afterthought.

_My son_, L thinks in wonder. He never thought he'd see him again.

"Come on!" M barks, tugging on his sleeve. "Run!"

L is half dragged, half carried back out the window, and shoved into the waiting helicopter.

"Good to see you again," N says brightly. L's hands are shaking. His leg aches and apparently he can't walk on it properly, but he doesn't really care. He's in the helicopter. He's with Watari, and N, and M.

He's safe.

Impossible.

"How the hell did they find you?" Rae asks.

_Your guess is as good as mine_, L thinks. He doesn't know. How can he not know? As far as he had deduced, they had no way of locating him.

He's made a mistake. Another error. His second in as many hours.

Pitiful.

"I've evacuated the surrounding buildings," N informs him.

"Marvin only planted enough explosives to bring down this building," L manages.

"Marvin?"

"The man who did this to me," L adds.

"Explain it to me later," N says, one of her hands pressing against his shoulder. "Watari, get us the hell out of here."

Watari steers them in a smooth half-circle, and then flies as fast as he can in the opposite direction.

L breathes out.

The building explodes before L even has time to fasten his own seatbelt. The helicopter is thrown forward by the force of the blow, but they're far enough away to escape the worst of the impact.

"Huh," M says, surveying the damage from his window seat. "You were right. Nothing else has been touched."

"Yeah. I figured he'd be pretty smart," L says quietly. The adrenaline is fading, and he's sleepy.

"This is Marvin?" N presses. "Who was he? Who is he? Did he know who you were?"

"Wedy's father," L manages. The helicopter is comfortable. When was the last time he actually slept?

"Wedy?" N asks, surprised.

"Then that would make his real name Marvin Kenwood," M drawls. "You're in luck."

"Luck?" N asks, baffled.

"A man identified as Marvin Kenwood drove his car off a local cliff about...ten minutes ago? The police relayed it to us because they thought it might have been related to the terrorist N's been chasing."

"He's dead, then," L asks, surprised.

"Looks like your identity is safe again, wonder boy," Rae mutters. It is presently lying on the floor of the cabin. L kicks at it.

"So Kenwood abducted you?" N queries.

"He shouldn't have gotten to me," L says gravely. "I was not paying sufficient attention. It was my mistake."

N sighs.

"Well, you're only human. You're bound to slip up occasionally. That said, please never, ever put yourself in that position again."

"That is certainly my plan," L says, dropping his head back against the seat.

"I wasn't sure if you'd given yourself up," M comments, mostly to the window. His words jolt L out of his drowse.

"What?"

"You didn't exactly take T's death well."

"_What_?"

He took T's death better than any of the rest of them! He was hardly even upset. He just kept right on working. How dare his protégé suggest otherwise?

M gives him a scathing, side-on look.

"Please," he says softly. "I know what grief fuckin' looks like."

L stares at him, mouth opening and closing silently, trying to formulate a response.

"You've been drugged, haven't you?" N asks him. "You're acting strangely."

"Sedatives. I don't know what," L says, turning to her. M is wrong, but there's little point in arguing with him.

"Huh," she says, and reaches for the first-aid kit. She actually reaches right through Rae's head, but of course, she doesn't know that. "We might have some sort of antidote."

"Never mind that right now," L says. "How did you find me?"

She frowns at him.

"You set off your belt. Did they give you something with amnesic properties as well?"

"But the belt doesn't measure strata," L says. "You chose the correct floor. How did you know where I was?"

He's wide awake now. This is important.

N looks at him like he's crazy.

"Okay, definitely amnesia," she pronounces. "You _told_ us which floor you were on, L. You sent us a message."

"I did?" L asks, astonished.

"Look, I'm getting sick of arguing," she says, and passes him her phone. "Here, read it."

Her most recent SMS is from _Doreen_. Doreen is the code name for his mobile. The one he had with him. The one that was left downstairs.

The message is simple, only three words.

_Floor twenty-two_.

It was sent fourteen minutes ago.

"Whoa," Rae says, peering over his arm. "What? How? You'd lost your mobile before this was sent!"

_What's happened?_ L wonders. _Is this some sort of emergency protocol I implemented and forgot about_?

_Is my memory just impaired?_

_Or did someone else do this?_

He passes the phone back to N.

"Thank you," he says. "My phone was left behind, so I'll have to acquire a new one as soon as we arrive back at base."

M is staring at him again.

"You _did_ send that message, right?" he asks blandly.

"Of course," L replies. "I remember that now."

He doesn't meet Rae's eyes.

* * *

They go back to their hotel at Washington. Watari goes over L, gives him yohimibine to reverse Marvin's drugs, and maneuvers his hip neatly but painfully back into place.

"Thank you," L gasps.

N is standing at the doorway, supervising.

"Will we go straight back to London, L?" she asks. "We can leave within the hour."

There's no reason for them to stay here now that the case is finished, and L usually feels safer when he's in his own heavily-guarded base, but...

But there's something he has to get to the bottom of, first. And apparently, it's right here.

"No," he says calmly. "We're in no immediate danger. We'll stay until tomorrow, as planned."

"Understood," N says politely.

"Get some rest tonight, L," Watari says kindly. "You know we worry about you, sometimes."

L stares at him, scrutinising.

"Do _you_ think I'm grieving?" he demands. He feels much better now that he's been treated. He feels balanced, and back in control. He's ready for his next case, and he's ready to never again make the mistakes he made today.

"I think you are yourself," Watari says. He's always startlingly good at answering difficult questions.

"Thank you," L says. "I will take your advice and sleep, now. Please monitor the building tonight, as usual."

"Of course, L."

L ambles up the stairs and sinks into his bed. The carpet in this hotel is plush and luxurious, but the bed is too hard, and the blankets too scratchy. Still, it won't bother him. He sleeps because he needs to, not because he enjoys it.

Rae flaps through the wall and hovers in its usual position, near the head of the bed on the left hand side.

"So you're actually going to sleep? I thought you'd be doing research into our mystery stalker."

"My mystery stalker," L corrects. "How could anyone possibly stalk you? They can't even _see_ you."

"Fair point. Which means _I_ won't be the one who gets mugged."

"Yes, you gloat about that," L monotones, stifling a yawn. "I'm going to sleep."

"Hm. Well, keep in mind that I won't be around to watch your death note tonight," Rae says, folding its arms.

"Oh?"

"All this talk of other Shinigami trying to kill you," it explains. "I just. It's bothering me. You are correct. When I saw your lifeline when we first met, it indicated that you'd live longer than today."

"And so I did," L says.

"But you were put in a situation where you shouldn't have," Rae says, scrubbing at its bony forehead. "In ordinary circumstances, we don't kill each other's humans. But since I have no death note of my own, it's possible another Shinigami might take that duty upon themselves."

"Hm," L murmurs. "So you want to go back to the Shinigami realm to make sure nobody kills me before my time?"

"That's right, Miss Marple."

L grins a little.

"I'll take extra precautions tonight then, to keep the note safe. I owe it to you, after all. You're securing my life."

"Oh, I'm not guaranteeing you'll live for the full five years," Rae warns. "I'm not guaranteeing you'll live through tomorrow. Like I said, this quest can be transfers to someone else."

"You won't let it transfer," L predicts. "You're too stubborn."

"And you _aren't_?"

"I'm exactly as stubborn as I ought to be," L says serenely. "I am L. Goodnight, god of death."

"Whatever," Rae says, and sweeps out of the room.

* * *

After that, L finds it strangely difficult to get off to sleep. He pulls on another five shirts, and sets up a simple alarm system that will pull his clock off the nightstand if someone comes through the door. He crosses his arms firmly over his chest, and closes his eyes.

Nope. He's wide awake.

"Too much antidote," he mutters. His mind is racing. A single phrase keeps repeating, over and over again.

_I understand. I won't let you down._

_I understand. I won't let you down._

_I understand. I won't...won't...won't._

L jolts upright.

"Damn you," he snarls, suddenly angry. "Didn't I tell you not to leave the room? Why didn't you _listen_?"

_I know what grief fuckin' looks like_.

M is defunct. L knows that. Nothing he says can be taken into account.

_That's right. And why would you listen to Matt over me, anyway_, his inner Near voice enquires. L wishes it would stop addressing him directly. Occasionally it makes him feel as if he's gone mad.

L forces himself to lie down and roll over. He needs to be calm.

The more like Near he can be, the better his chances of winning every case. After all, it was Near that defeated Light. He clearly had something L had lacked at the time. It's only sensible that L try and emulate him now.

"L?"

L is back to sitting bolt upright before his brain can even process what's happened.

"...oh. It's you."

He breathes deeply. Rae is gone. It's only natural that she'd be here.

Rem smiles, but she doesn't come any closer. Strange. Why would a Shinigami be cautious of a human?

And she's never kept her distance before.

"What is it?" he asks, rubbing at his eyes. "You didn't contact me first."

She regards his carpet.

"I don't have much to say, I suppose."

"I'm starting to feel like you're a replacement for Rae," L comments. "Perhaps you are my fill-in Shinigami, here to keep me company in Rae's absence?"

"Am I no better company than Rae?" she asks, spitting the last word out like it tastes bad. Clearly she has not developed any fondness for her fellow death god since the last time they spoke.

"You are infinitely better company, but that is not particularly a compliment," L informs her. "Jam jars and psychiatrically deranged mass murders would also both make better company than my Shinigami."

"I see," she says. "That much aside, I am glad to see you are unharmed."

_Unharmed_?

"You witnessed my abduction today, then?"

"I did."

A thought strikes him.

"Did you send a message from my phone?" he asks, propping his chin up on his knee.

She sighs.

"I thought that without help, your friends might have run out of time."

"Ah," L says, relaxing. "It was you. I was worried it was that thing."

"What thing? Rae?"

L waves one hand in the air. The other is fishing around under his pillow. He has jubes somewhere, he's certain.

"No, something new. Something's been following me for a good six months or so, now. Rae keeps seeing it out of the corner of its eye. And so do I."

He comes up with a handful of gooey, sugary goodness. Victory!

"Not that I'm particularly worried," he adds, stuffing an orange-flavoured sweet into his mouth, and chewing thoughtfully. "It's not as if said creature is doing me any harm."

She's really fascinated by that carpet. Something is wrong. Rem has always been perfectly confident.

"Has something happened to you?" he queries.

No response.

"Rem? Did Rae do this? Or are you just unnerved because I know who you used to be?"

"That was no creature following you," she says, finally. "That was me."

L pauses, trying to decipher that.

"You were following me?"

"That is correct."

"I see," L says, stroking his bottom lip. "And of course, you couldn't let yourself be seen by Rae, because he'd quite possibly eat you."

Rem smiles a little at that, despite her present ailment.

"But that still leaves the question of _why_," he continues. "Why follow us? Did you suspect something? Is there something going on in the Shinigami realm that I should know about?"

More silence.

_Why has she shown up here if she has nothing to say?_

"No, there's nothing going on," she says, audibly steeling her voice. "I've thought of something else you should know, though. About the redemption process. You see, I've found out that someone may be briefly removed from hell - or have their entry to hell delayed - if it is necessary for them to be given a fair chance at redemption. It seems that certain people, especially the very intelligent, may otherwise realise they are being given a chance and abuse -"

"Why are you following me, Rebecca?" L hisses, cutting her off. He's starting to feel uneasy. She's not behaving normally.

She stares at him, and there's a strange guilt in her cat-yellow eyes.

"What's happened to you?" he repeats.

"No one's ever told me I don't deserve to be in hell," she says, barely a whisper. She looks lost. L's eyes widen.

"No," he breathes. "No you didn't. You said you wouldn't. You practically promised."

"My words were 'don't flatter yourself'," she replies defensively. "And circumstances change."

"So you just...you just followed me?" he says, fighting to keep his voice quiet. "What about your own life? Haven't you been doing anything else at all?"

"I wanted to make sure you were safe!" she says hotly. It's strange to hear her yell, strange to hear her struggle to defend herself. It can't be that she's feeling vulnerable, god knows she's done this many times before.

_But you've never been challenged before, have you?_ L realises. _Because people like Mark and Misa were always perfectly happy to have you utterly devoted to them_.

"I won't be a burden, I promise," she says carefully, mistaking his silence for acceptance.

"No," L says adamantly. "No. This will not do. What is necessary to make you fall out of love with me?"

"There isn't anything you can do," she informs him bleakly. "But as I said, it shouldn't be a hassle to you. I'll stay out of your way, and help when I can. You won't even know I'm around."

"Actually, you'd be surprised how stealthy you aren't, Rem," someone says from behind them, and L realises they've been set up.

"That was an awfully short visit," L says laconically.

"_You!"_ Rem says, loathing dripping from her voice.

Rae folds its arms.

"Not that this isn't hilarious," it says cheerily, "but I'd _love_ to know just how long you've been seeing this pathetic excuse for a god behind my back."

"I'd love to know why this bothers you," L says thoughtfully.

"Has this been going on every time I leave you alone for a few seconds? Has this been going on for the _past three years_?" Rae demands.

"I came to him because _you_ were breaking the rules, you _monster_," Rem snaps. "You had _no right_ to torture him, and you _knew_ that."

"Oh good. The whole three years then," Rae says, scissoring its wings dangerously. "Obviously you she hasn't told you anything too useful, because you certainly haven't demonstrated any sort of advantage over me."

"To the contrary," L says. "The only thing I ever questioned her about was hell. Oh, and she told me a little about the king. And she mentioned the queen."

"That bitch?" Rae says darkly.

"I thought you'd never met her?" L asks, interested.

"Oh no, but all the orders come through her. It was her who thought up this little task, you see. Rem likes her, because she makes life difficult for me."

"You _deserve_ a difficult life, you brat!" Rem says. L has never seen her angry before. She's a little scary. "You deserve...you deserve worse than that!"

"You ought to show your future king a little more respect," Rae says, puffing out its chest. It doesn't seem to be angry at her. In fact, it seems to almost see her as a joke, a fool. Its anger is definitely only directed at L.

"Oh, what will you do then, your _majesty_? Will you have me beheaded? No, wait, you can't do that. Will you have me crumble to dust? Oh wait, that won't get rid of me either."

"I could have you...destroyed," Rae says evilly, smiling at her.

"You couldn't," she shoots back. "I fall under the jurisdiction of the queen. You can't touch me."

Rae shrugs dramatically.

"She's bound to get sick of you, sooner or later. And anyway, we're missing the main point. You're in love with L now, huh? I guess that means that when his time is up, this world will also be rid of your whining and stupidity. Maybe I'll spend most of my time here, then."

"How _dare_ you -"

"How dare _you_," Rae counters. "Do you think I don't know what this is about? You're trying to undermine me in my quest to be king. You're chasing down some false notion of revenge, so you thought you'd turn L against me as well."

"I'm already against you," L mutters, having given up on getting a word in edgewise.

"Why on earth would you fall for _him_, anyway?" Rae asks, laughing a little. "At least Misa was _attractive_."

_Because you place no value on kindness or morality, Shinigami?_

_Oh, wait. That's right. I'm evil to the core_.

"That's none of your business!"

"When I'm king, _everything_ will be my business. And _you'll_ do what I tell you to, Rem."

"I will not," she snaps.

Rae stretches broadly and yawns.

"Anyway, I know why you're doing this. You just can't admit to yourself that I was right, all along. And you were _wrong_."

"You were _never_ right!" Rem says, but she's shaking.

"Oh yes I was," Rae jeers. "I always have been. Say, Rem, are you happy? Are you getting what you want? Because _I_ am."

Rae turns back to L, and Rem drops onto her knees, hands covering her face, shoulders heaving arrhythmically.

Sobbing.

_Oh_, L thinks, briefly mortified for her. _Don't cry. Not in front of Rae. It's bad enough that he knows this much about you._

_Please, Rebecca, stop making yourself a victim. This is pointless. You never should have fallen for me, what value can it possibly have_?

"I hope you didn't think too much of her," Rae says, smirking. "She's really not much of a death god, L."

"And you are?" L asks, raising one eyebrow.

"You know it."

"Don't talk to him like that," Rem says, regaining some control of herself. "He's better than you!"

"And everyone in the world is better than _you_," Rae says.

"Would you both please stop," L says, as loudly as he can without waking the others. "Please. I have no quarrel with either of you. If you need to fight, please take it outside."

"Oh, no, that's quite all right," Rae says, wandering over to stand at his side. "I don't want to bicker with a commoner, after all. And you don't get much more common than her."

"She is my friend," L says, surprising even himself.

Rem gapes at him.

_Oh no, what have I done_.

"L," she says, hoarsely. "L, I've changed my mind. I'm not going to follow you."

"Thank goodness for that."

L elbows his Shinigami in the ribs.

"Enough," he says quietly.

"I'm going to do something else for you, first," she announces. "It might take a while, maybe even a long while. But I won't stop until it's done. And then maybe you can be happy."

"What are you going to do, Rem?" he asks warily.

She smiles at him. She's quite pretty when she smiles.

"You'll see," she says.

_Don't do anything crazy_, L thinks. _Don't try to do the impossible_.

_You aren't going to try and bust Mello out of hell at the cost of your own life, are you?_

She approaches him, finally, and touches his forehead, just below his hairline.

"I want you to be glad you have me around," she says quietly. "I've never fallen for someone good before."

"I wish I could throw up," Rae announces unhelpfully.

"Rem," L says, giving up. It's probably better than she isn't with him, that's she's protected from Rae's undermining barrage of insults. "Please be careful."

"I will," she says. "And I want you to keep in mind what I said to you earlier today. It's true that I was using the information to stall, but it's also true that you ought to know. That's truly everything I can tell you about hell."

"All right," L says awkwardly.

"Goodbye, L," she says, far too fondly, and walks through the wall and out of the room.

* * *

"You idiot," Rae tells him harshly. "Why did you let her go? You could have used her to help solve cases. Or, heck, you could have had her bring you candy every day. She'd do anything for you, now."

"I _employ_ people," L says firmly. "I don't _use_ th-"

_No, he's right_, his inner Near voice interrupts. _She would have been useful. It's not like she's really a person, and she's tireless. She could have helped solve an awful lot of cases. Maybe it's not too late to get her back_.

L stops. Suspends.

_What did you say_? he asks.

_I said_-

_You were agreeing with Rae._

_In this instance, he is correct_.

L clutches his head with both hands.

"What have I done?" he whimpers.

"What's your problem now?" Rae asks, poking him.

L ignores the death god. There are more pressing things to focus on.

_You're not Near,_ he thinks. _Near wouldn't say that. None of my proteges would ever say that. You're not anyone._

_You're just a part of me. The cold, hard, ruthless part of me. I gave you a name, and now I'm clinging to you because...because..._

_Because I'm grieving._

_Don't be silly_, it says. _ You're not grieving. You're L._ _And I'm your inner Near voice._

A revelation. It's been a day for revelations, after all.

_Even if that's true - and I hope for Near's sake that it isn't - it wasn't really Near's actions that lead to Kira's arrest, was it?_

_You're being irrational. I'm a part of you. You were right to regard me_.

_Fuck him_, says another inner voice, one L has never heard before. _Fuck him. You're L, aren't you? You can do anything you fucking want. If you're listening to Near just because he's your favourite, then you've got serious fucking issues. He's never lived in the real world even once in his fucking life_.

It fades before it even finishes, and L reaches out mentally.

_Wait! Mello!_

He clutches his head tighter. Near and Mello do not live inside his head. All this time he's been pretending to be stronger because he calculates more accurate percentages and disregards emotions, and he's missed the fact that he's essentially made himself an imaginary friend.

The Mello voice doesn't stay, because Mello wouldn't want L to be relying on inner voices. Mello lived in the real world. Mello always considered everything, including the way he felt.

The voices seem to have annulled each other. There is silence inside his head.

_You can do anything you fucking want_.

He feels liberated, humanised, and powerful. He didn't catch fewer criminals before Matsuda died. His capacity has not improved. He's just been boasting to himself that he's changed for the better.

Light never felt anything. If he doesn't feel anything, that's one less step between them. And he should have considered that, right from the start.

Because he can do anything he fucking wants, right?

So what does he want to do right now?

L drops his forehead onto his knees, and lets it come. Lets out the water that's been backing up inside his head run out through his eyes and slide down his face. He sucks in a jerky breath that has more sound to it than he intended.

"What the hell?" Rae asks.

He's sobbing. On his bed. In the middle of the night. Sobbing. Like he hasn't done since he was six years old.

And it feels fucking awesome.

* * *

Rem flies through the night, and into the morning. She stays fairly low in the sky, skimming over the tops of skyscrapers. She likes to be able to see the people moving down below.

As a Shinigami, she's taken plenty of lives. That is her purpose, that is what she is expected to do now. As a human, she took plenty of lives, even though it was against the law. She doesn't seem to be able to exist in any other way.

Some people are just evil, through and through.

Some gods are just evil, through and through.

But that doesn't matter now, she has a new goal. She can bargain for the safety of Mihael Keehl, the man L spoke of when they met previously. She knows exactly what she needs to do. The sacrifice will be worth it. And despite her encounter with that...that _monster_, she feels lighthearted and happy. She saved L's life. She's done something good, for once.

And he was angry. So strange. No one has ever cared before, they've just happily accepted what she gave. But she's helped him out as much as she can, and he's been grateful for it in the past. Maybe he was just surprised by the revelation.

By the time she gets back to the death god realm, the sun is riding low in the sky, pale orange painting the world below. There are other gods milling around the place. Ryuk gives her half a wave before going back to tossing his sand-filled apple in the air. The other gods mostly ignore her.

She makes her way to the top of the tallest mountain, pushing through rubbery black trees and rotting piles of bones. The Shinigami world is as disgusting as the human world. And she hates them both.

The cottage is tiny and cosy-looking, with a neat little vegetable garden and green plants outside, and the whole thing looks starkly out of place. And deceivingly innocent.

This cottage has been here before the beginning of time. It is ancient and unending, and the closer she gets, the bigger it feels. It's a terrifying place to be. None of the others dare to come here, not even the king.

The door is no taller than she is, but she feels dwarfed by it. She raises her hands and raps twice, and the sound seems to echo on forever.

"Rebecca?"

There is only one person in the world who calls her by that name. She turns towards the direction of that voice and inclines her head.

"Your majesty," she says, respectfully.

The queen walks towards her. She's completely white, from head to toe, with long pale blonde hair, a pristine robe, and feathery wings. The only things that aren't white are her eyes, which seem to pierce right through Rem.

"You can just call me by name, Rebecca," the queen reminds her.

"Of course," Rem says, straightening up.

The queen places her secateurs on a shelf next to the door. Her hands are stained with dirt and chlorophyll. Rem doesn't understand why she has a vegetable garden.

Nothing else grows up here.

"What brings you here, today?" she enquires, not unkindly, but Rem still flinches.

"I..I have a request," she says quickly.

"Hmm," the queen says. "I have water in the kettle. Please, come inside."

Rem follows her into the cottage obediently. The inside of the cottage is always horrifying, but for no discernible reason. Rem thinks it must have something to do with the tiny, thumbnail-sized photographs that cover the walls and ceiling. Millions of flat, dead eyes on her at once.

All of those in the jurisdiction of the queen. Somewhere in here, is a photograph of Rebecca Remira.

Not that she wants to see it.

The table is already set for two, white-and-gold china teacups, tiny saucers, and silver spoons. She thinks of L.

"You were expecting me," she says.

"Yes, of course."

The queen sets the kettle on the stove, and moves around the table to poke briefly at the crackling fireplace. It's tiny and cheerful-looking.

They say the fire in the queen's house never goes out. Never.

They also say that the queen can read minds, that the queen is god, that the queen is in many places at once. The problem is, no-one really knows much about the queen, so people tend to make things up. Rem is sure that at least half of those statements are rumours.

The water boils in no time at all, and the queen pours them tea. Rem isn't as unnerved as she usually is. Her love for L courses through her, making her strong. It hasn't been a bad few months, and she'll be sad to leave it all behind.

Still. This is what must be done.

The queen finally sits down, and starts spooning sugar into her cup.

"So, what did you want from me? Oh, by the way, thank you for your perfectly ordinary behaviour earlier. I appreciate you not giving anything away."

Rem bows again, habitually.

"Of course."

As if she'd jeopardise something like _that_.

"And I...I want to make a deal, your maj...Jas."

Jas is her real name, or at least, what she's told Rem to call her, but Rem is unable to think of her as anything other than 'queen'.

She takes a tiny sip.

"Again? We've been through this before. There is nothing that you can possibly trade with me, Rebecca."

Rem stares at her. Shinigami don't usually drink tea, and she doesn't understand why the queen always serves it.

"What about the remaining years of my life?" she says, carefully. "You have no death note of your own, Jas. Surely you must need a few years every so often."

The quee...Jas raises her eyebrows. It bothers Rem the way her eyes are not the same colour as each other..

"How very well-thought-out of you," she comments, and then holds up her hand. "One moment, please."

She gets up again, and turns to the wall behind the table, searching for a moment. Then she selects a photograph of an attractive, raven-haired woman.

"Emma Wakefield," the queen murmurs. "You have passed."

She tosses the photograph into the fire. Rem has seen a similar thing happen before. Those that pass out of the queen's jurisdiction, those that are redeemed, all wind up in the fire.

They say the queen is a part of everyone's hell. A million different versions of her, human and Shinigami and who knows what else.

And she's sick of the distractions. This isn't an easy thing for her to do, as much as she wants to.

"I'm offering you the rest of my _life_," she says hotly. "All I want in return is for you to let someone out of hell."

"Then I offer you the same answer that I did when you tried to free Mark," Jas says indifferently. "And Misa. And hundreds of other people. _No_, Rebecca."

"I've never offered to sacrifice my life before."

The queen sighs, and rests her head against the wall.

"Go on, then. Who is it this time?" she asks indulgently.

"Mihael Keehl," Rem replies. "Russian, I believe."

In all her times coming here, she's never seen the queen look startled before.

"Keehl?" the queen asks. She reaches up and touches a photograph high up on the wall. It's a young man with shoulder-length yellow hair. He's very good looking.

_Is that him, L_?

Does the strange reaction mean she's in with a chance?

"Yes."

The queen puts on hand on her hip.

"You certainly run a hard bargain, Rebecca," she says, after a moment, and then shakes her head. "I am fond of Keehl, but I can't let him go."

"Of course you can. You're the _queen_. You can do anything you want," Rem counters. She likes Mihael, then. The queen very rarely develops favourites. She has an advantage.

"No," Jas says, drawing herself up to her full height, and Rem shrinks a little. "No. I am fond of you, too, but that doesn't mean I will break the rules. Things must be done properly, _Rebecca_. I thought you, of all people, might know that."

The queen is always horrifying when she's angry.

"I just don't understand," Rem says, amazed at her own courage. "If you yourself admit that something isn't fair, why can't you fix it? You are the one who controls hell, after all."

Jas sets her cup down and moves to stand next to Rem's chair.

"And you'd die, would you? Just to do this for Lawliet?"

_She's cracked_, Rem thinks, astonished. _I don't believe it_.

"Of course," she replies, without hesitation. "My life for Keehl's freedom. For L. Do we have a deal?"

The queen beams at her. Rem has never seen her smile before. Isn't there some sort of fairy tale about that?

_The queen will only smile at you once_.

Probably another rumour. But Rem feels uncomfortable, all the same.

"I'm afraid not," Jas tells her sadly. "That deal is not possible."

There's something about the way she says it, an odd finality, that makes Rem stand and start backing towards the door.

"That's fine," she says nervously. "I'll just...go back and...keep an eye on him."

She can discuss this another day, when the queen is in a better mood.

"I'm afraid you can't do that either," Jas says softly. "I'm afraid you cannot do anything for Lawliet at all, any more."

"Is that a threat?" Rem asks, gobsmacked.

"That is just the way things are," the queen replies, still smiling. "I'm glad, to be honest. You had me worried you weren't going to make it."

"Make _what_?" Rem demands. This isn't right. Something is wrong. She needs to get out of here.

"Your time is up," Jas answers, and closes the gap between them in two strides. Rem is trapped.

"You're going to kill me? Why? I've fallen for lots of humans before," she protests, panicked. "It's not as if I've lengthened his life."

"This isn't about you being a Shinigami," Jas says. "Don't you understand? Your time is up. You've passed."

Rem's mouth snaps shut.

_No._

"But I've been here so long," she breathes. "You can't. It's not possible. I don't even remember what it was like."

The queen presses a hand to Rem's cheek, her blue-and-green eyes shining. Rem feels her hands and feet turn to sand and crumble.

_No. Not again!_

She can't talk. She can barely think.

"Rebecca Remira," Jas says reverently. "Do better this time."

_L_, Rem thinks, and is gone.

* * *

L's breakfast consists of half a bowl of sugar, half a bowl of syrup, a few pieces of cereal, and a teaspoon of milk. Since he's gotten up, he's just stayed in his room working at the computer. He's not ready to go outside yet. His self-identity has shifted again, and he needs to be more certain of what he wants to do, of how he's going to treat people.

"I still can't believed you've changed back," Rae says gleefully. "And so easily, too. I guess it's true, what they say about the love of a good woman."

"You wouldn't know good if it slapped you in the face," L replies diffidently. "And please leave Rem out of this."

"That's what _you_ think," Rae replies, and then wanders off, apparently having insulted him satisfactorily.

L sets his bowl aside. He misses Matsuda. He _misses_ Matsuda. And he regrets misjudging him. And he's...he's coming to terms with that. Maybe.

But he still needs to set that aside. He needs to focus on the living, on Naomi and Mail, and Watari. And everyone else in the world.

He hears someone walk into the room, but doesn't look up. He's still musing.

"L! You're okay. I mean, I knew that. I guess I just wanted to see with my own eyes."

L does turn around at that.

"R," he says quietly. "What are you doing here?"

Raye rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

"When...when Naomi said there was trouble, I jumped on a plane," he explains, fidgeting. "It was stupid, I know, but she sounded so scared. Of course, I knew everything was okay before I even landed. But I...I came anyway."

_You agreed not to contact your wife while she was away from base_, L thinks. _And I told you you wouldn't be allowed to accompany her on any missions_.

It seems like there's always one person who won't follow his instructions.

He wonders absently just how good Raye's aim is. He wonders if he'd have shot Light, if he'd been given the chance.

"You shouldn't have," L scolds.

Raye stares at the ground.

"Well, I did," he says. There's neither remorse nor challenge in his voice. He's just stating a fact.

L clicks his tongue.

"It seems to me you need to decide if you are staying or going, Raye Penber," he says softly.

For the first time in months, Raye looks him in the eye.

"You what?" he asks, nervously. "Are you offering me my old job back?"

One corner of L's mouth turns up, in the tiniest hint of a smile.

"Perhaps," he says, vaguely.

Raye frowns.

"What sort of answer is _that_, you bast-"

"It is there if you want it," L clarifies abruptly. "It is not a decision that is attached to any particular time frame, so please don't feel you need to stand in this room and hassle me."

"You...argh, _fine_," the older man snarls, seemingly torn between frustration and gratitude.

"Oh, and one more thing," L says, reaching a decision. "You ought to know that as an employee, you are nowhere near as important to me as Matsuda was."

"_Fuck you_," Raye spits, and L hears the door slam.

"What a nice guy you are," Rae informs him, floating back into the room.

"Two minutes, ten seconds," L informs it. "Time it on the clock, if you don't believe me?"

"Huh? What are you up to, now?"

L does a little more research into potential cases, and finds himself some more cereal. Exactly one hundred and thirty seconds pass. The door swings back open again.

"You miss Matsuda," Raye says accusingly. "You called him by his name!"

"Yes, on both counts," L says softly. He listens to Raye's footsteps coming closer and closer, and the older man puts a hand on his shoulder uncertainly.

"That was your way of grieving, huh?"

"Apparently," L says, keeping his voice light. "But I do what I need to get by. If you want to come back to the team, you need to be aware of that."

He sees Raye smile in the reflection on his monitor.

"Yes, I realise that," he says, voice low. "I want to come back."

L puts his hand over Raye's. They're not far apart in years, but he forgets that because Raye is married. Marriage seems to automatically make someone about ten years older than they are.

"Good," he says. "I'll have Watari bring the paperwork. In the meantime, please go and fetch yourself a spare computer. We're researching potential cases."

"Great," Raye says, sounding ridiculously happy. "Let's find us something to do."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ EmoLollipop - I swear his hair is brown in the anime. or maybe I'm just colourblind?

+ AmyLisa - if ohba/obata made matt/mello canon, I would die of happy.

+ thank you for your comments.


	17. Ghost

notes/warnings

+ swearing.

+ possible insensitive use of some common christian prayers? you might want to skip this chapter if such things offend you.

* * *

**Ghost**

The next few cases are small, less-important crimes that probably could have all been solved by respective teams of sufficiently-talented police detectives.

But L takes them anyway. Just to prove the point.

His humanity is the one thing that stands between who he is, and who Light was. He absolutely cannot afford to lose it. All the same, it makes things harder. It blurs the edges of his cold, hard logic, sometimes. It makes him a little more vulnerable, a little more likely to doubt himself.

A little more like Matsuda, maybe.

Then, for about a month, he has to feign deafness because Rae decides to scream at him every time someone else speaks.

"I don't understand why you're doing this," L says one night. He's just come from a particularly exhausting team meeting where everyone had to repeat themselves several times to bypass L's sudden and refractory double ear infection.

"Because I'm bored?" Rae says, skull propped up on one bony arm. It sounds pleased with itself.

"You aren't going to break me like this," L says smugly. "You're barely passing as annoying right now. I'm not likely to disregard my own principles simply because I need to lip-read a little more often."

"Even you get tired eventually, Lawliet," Rae says, flopping onto its back.

"And you have, in the past, demonstrated that you have a very good brain," L says sleepily, applying toothpaste to his brush. "You could at least present me with some sort of challenge."

Rae shoves at him.

"You're not supposed to harm -"

"_Listen_," Rae snarls. "You think this is a game? You think this is funny? You think all of the things that I say mean nothing? You're not a good person, L Lawliet, no matter how lofty you pretend to be. You ignore the easiest ways to save people. Oh sure, you give wonderful little speeches about your life choices, but they're all just _excuses _you've made for yourself, so you can go on pretending to be the hero. And quite honestly, I'm through with you. I don't care about challenging you. I don't care what you want."

"Of course you don't," L intones. "You're running out of time, aren't you, Shinigami? Goodness, we must be past the three-year mark, now."

"All I want," the death god continues doggedly, "is for you to _write down a name_."

"Ah," L says around a mouthful of foam. "That is a problem. See, I have absolutely no desire to make you happy, and no desire to use the note. In fact, the only other Shinigami I've met also seems to be of the opinion that you are unfit to be king. Perhaps I am doing the world a favour."

Rae draws up to its full height, towering over L. He glances up briefly, just a quick look at its scalding, bright-red eyes.

Sometimes, he imagines Rae as the popular personification of the grim reaper. All it needs is a black robe and a scythe.

And maybe a more personable demeanour.

L grins at his own joke and spits into the sink. He hates the taste of toothpaste. It's never sweet enough. Maybe he ought to add some sugar cubes to it?

"You do understand that whether or not you oblige me and use the note, I'll be right here with you when the five years is up," it says coldly. "And when that time comes, well. These ridiculous rules that bind me won't be in place any more."

"You'll kill me immediately?" L queries. "Hm. How very predictable. You have been so disappointing recently."

"I won't kill you if you make me happy," Rae says unsubtly. "I give you my word on that. I think you should consider very carefully just what this world will be like if you're no longer in it."

L touches his lips, and then frowns at his paste-covered fingertips. He's certainly incapacitated a lot of harmful people.

"Why should I believe you?" he asks calmly. "You can say you won't kill me now, of course, but as soon as I give you what you want, what's to stop you?"

"You know I'm too proud to go back on my word," Rae says haughtily. "That ought to be enough."

L studies the Shinigami intently.

"I know you are a liar," he concludes, finally. "That is all I am certain of, at this present stage. However, you raise an interesting point. Will I use the note to save my own life?"

Rae leans in a little.

"And? What is the answer?"

L stifles a yawn.

"The answer is that I am going to bed," he says sleepily. "Good night."

"Strange," Rae says balefully. "I always thought evil didn't _need_ to sleep."

* * *

_Will I use the note to save my own life?_

Is his own life worth more than anyone else's because of the people he's able to save? No, surely not. He'd decided that a long time ago, when Rae attempted to sleep-deprive him into submission.

He'll die when he's meant to die, whether that's when his lifespan runs out, or when a Shinigami cuts it short. He cannot afford to see himself as being above anyone else, not one single criminal, no matter what. No matter how likely they are to die anyway. If he sees himself in a position of privilege, of status, then...

Well, that's one less step again, isn't it? And he's staying well away from that slippery slope.

Nothing Rae says is true. That thing doesn't care for anyone, and it certainly sets no store by true justice. If it were human, he would think it the most evil creature in the world. But maybe death gods are just like that.

Some of them.

There's been no sign of Rem since she left, but L doesn't know if he should expect her. She could be gone for many months, even years. It all depends on what she left to do, and how she intends to do it.

A tiny little part of him desperately wants her to come back with Mello. Even if it costs her dearly.

Selfish? Oh yes, he is selfish. Weak, selfish, and maybe even a bad person.

But there's nothing in the world that can make him use the note. Nothing.

He's...ninety nine point two percent certain.

* * *

The water from the shower is too hot. Burning. It leaves thousands of little telltale red dots all over his white skin. He counts another bead, letting it slip through his fingers like water, drawing the next one into place.

_Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thee amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus_.

Not that it matters. He lost the ability to feel pain three years ago. Three years, six months, eight days, ten hours, four minutes.

Another bead.

_Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name_.

There's no point in dying again, so occasionally he makes a half-hearted effort to eat something, or scrape the filth from his skin. He's still wearing half his clothes, because he honestly doesn't care that much. Mello would have scowled and called him disgusting and primped his hair using the nearest reflective surface when nobody was looking.

_Thy kingdom come, thy word be done, on earth, as it is in heaven_.

He's still got the rosary on, too. It's all he has left. He prays all day, and all night. Through research. When he's talking to suspects. When he's dismantling bombs. When that lady who lives here screams at him that he needs to sleep _sometimes_ or he's going to die. All the time. Always.

…_amongst women, and blessed is…_

He learned the words by rote when he first got here and cried all the fucking time because he was so alone. Mostly he just says them for something to do.

And because Mello can't, anymore, obviously.

_Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us…_

_Forgive us…_

_Forgive us, you bastard, why won't you fucking forgive us?_

_WHY WON'T YOU? WHY WON'T YOU? WHY WON'T YOU? WHY DID YOU DO THIS?_

He only breaks one of the taps. He's getting better at controlling his anger. Mello would have been…mildly impressed. He always wanted Mail to stop playing video games and pay attention.

He's stopped now. A little late, since Mello's heart isn't beating and never will again. The only precious thing in the world.

The beads are just made of wood. They're nothing. They'll just up and fucking break, one day. Or rot.

…_and deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom…_

_Why did you go? All they needed was a name. It didn't have to be yours, you fucking, fucking, fucking bastard._

"I hate you," he says bitterly. To the shower. To the world. To Mello. He wants to rip out his own beating heart and stamp on it. He wants everything to stop. He wants a proper death, to go into the ground and never exist again.

…_fruit of thy glory, forever and ever…_

He slumps down in the cubicle, bony knees slamming against his chest. His hair touches the ground, wet and smelly and unpleasant. He can't actually remember what shade of blonde Mello's hair used to be.

Sometimes he can't remember Mello's face, either. There aren't any pictures here. No memento except the flimsy rosary beads.

_Hail Mary, who art in heaven…_

He winds up staring at the big black _Keehl_ inked across his chest. He got it not long after L found him. When he stood in the tattoo parlour with needles being driven through his skin…yeah, that was the last time Mail remembers ever feeling okay. The ink is permanent. It'll last longer than anything else.

Mello would call him pathetic. Mello cared about him a little, but only as a brother. He'd be horrified by the intensity and infatuation behind Mail's grief. If he ever found out.

But he won't.

Mail would gladly go to hell and be tortured for the rest of his life, if he could have one more minute with Mello. Commit every feature to memory, and tell him. Well, not tell him the truth, but tell him that he is important, and the brightest thing in this world, and.

Sometimes, he can't actually believe that Mello's gone. Occasionally, he steps outside his bedroom and expects to find another young man in the bathroom, brushing his teeth with chocolate and scuffing his boots against the tiles.

_Give us this day, our daily fruit of thy womb…_

It's all he wants, all he wants, all he wants, all he wants.

He wouldn't say _I love you_, even if he had another chance. Even when they were alive, he never put his fingers in that dangerously blonde hair. He has no memory of the way it feels, because he never touched it.

It was yellow, wasn't it? Or darker than that?

_As we forgive those who trespass against us, oh god, just bring him back_.

Sometimes, he tells himself that this is hell, and that Mello's actually gone to heaven and is unsurpassably happy right now.

Sometimes, that's the only thing that keeps him going.

But really, what else is he going to do?

That woman is banging on the door, yelling at him that he's going to catch a cold if he doesn't get dried. Water is leaking out of the tap he broke, but he's not sure what temperature it's supposed to be.

"Fuck off," he yells back. He knows she won't come in. None of them fuck with him.

_I'll give you anything, god. Anything. I don't even believe in you, and I'll give you anything. Just…just…_

_You're probably not even listening, are you?_

Another bead. Another day. He writes Mello's name on the mirror with his finger, over and over, until the condensation dries and erases all of it. Gone. Dead. He counts another bead.

_Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee_…

Just in case. Just in case. Just in case.

* * *

"There's something weird going on in Brisbane, Australia," Naomi comments. "I don't know if it's unsolvable-"

"Nothing is unsolvable," L interrupts resolutely. He has pecan pie. It is sticky. He wishes he had more.

"...but it's certainly unusual," she finishes, with a dignified glower.

They're doing research into potential cases. Again. These days, it seems like they spend just as much time finding the cases as they do _solving_ them.

It's a challenge in itself. L smiles. He scrawls on the edge of his notepad.

_'One and a half years left_.'

"I know," Rae hisses.

And then it touches its teeth in an obvious mockery of L's own habit.

"Goodness me, do you suppose I'm out of aces?" it enquires nastily. "I must be. Right?"

L smiles wanly.

_'Well, starting arguments with people who cannot reply is a sure sign of clutching at straws.'_

"You keep telling yourself that."

"Unusual how?" L asks Naomi.

"Oh, nothing huge," she says, twirling her hair around her finger. "Just...you don't see a lot of serial murder-kidnaps, I guess."

"Murder-kidnaps?" Raye repeats, sounding a little shocked. "What, kill the parents and take the kid?"

"And repeatedly," Mail adds.

"So whoever it is, they are presumably acquiring a lot of children?" L wonders.

"There have been seven documented cases," Naomi tells them quietly. "Including one case where two children were taken at once."

"Specifics?" Mail asks her without emotion. L notices the way she glares at him, and then checks herself.

"No signs of forced entry. It's as if the perpetrator gets himself a key somehow, before every attack. No connection between the families, none of the victims seem to have common acquaintances or workplaces, and they're from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds. All, however, had children under seven years old."

"Strange," L says, gazing at the roof.

"And terrifying," Raye snaps. "God, I don't even want to think about what sort of sicko would want eight kids. Oh god, what's he doing to them?"

"Clearly he isn't holding them for ransom if the parents are dead," L muses. "And if we are dealing with a paedophile, then they are going about things in a very unorthodox manner. N, how were the parents killed?"

"Shot through the heart. A single bullet wound, in every case. The attacker always seems to wait until the whole family gets home."

"You've done your research," L notes. Naomi shrugs, a little awkwardly.

"I thought this might be one for us. The police detectives can't find a damn thing. No fingerprints, no evidence, no nothing. They say it's as if a ghost had committed the crime. And the children just disappear."

"Police often blame ghosts for difficult crimes," L says dismissively. "That is simply another way of saying they, personally, have given up."

Of course, it would be irresponsible to claim that ghosts definitely do not exist, but he's never come across a single case that didn't have firm evidence leading to a solid and human criminal.

So it is safe to say that ghosts, if they do exist, rarely commit crime, and do not commit crime of the level that attracts L's attention.

Therefore, the murderer-kidnapper will also be human.

Really, his deductive processes were much less complicated before he knew Shinigami existed.

"We need to do this," Raye says forcefully. "We need to find this person and stop them, before any more children get taken."

"And before more adults get murdered," Naomi reminds her husband. "That's just as important."

"I need you to be a little less emotionally involved, R," L warns. "We will severely disadvantage ourselves if we charge in and make silly mistakes due to passion."

"I know that," Raye hisses. "Are we going, or not?"

The Penbers stare at L expectantly.

"It'll be spring down there," Rae murmurs. "Shouldn't be too hot yet."

Sometimes the Shinigami says strangely human things. L supposes it's been haunting various people for a long time. There's probably a long selection process for the future king.

"Yes," he says, decisively. "I think we ought to go and see for ourselves."

"Good," Raye says, obviously relieved.

L lets himself smile a little. He has a new case. It's a good day.

* * *

They wind up in a ritzy but sensibly-built hotel in the heart of Brisbane, in the middle of an uncharacteristically early heat wave.

"Apparently it's supposed to be raining," Raye says disgustedly. His fringe is already plastered to his forehead. "But I think anything that falls from the sky gets vaporised on the way down."

"Go and put your head in the sink, honey," Naomi tells him, somewhat sympathetically. She flips through the case notes she made during the flight, and selects a hand-drawn map of the area, placing it on the table in front of L."

"You're working already?" Raye asks, annoyed. "We haven't even put our things away. Aren't you hungry?"

"Watari is bringing trifle," L informs him serenely.

There is impending dessert. All is right with his world.

"I'm fine," Naomi replies offhandedly. "Besides, weren't you the one saying we needed to get this case solved right away?"

"Yes," L agrees, regarding him for a moment. "You did stipulate that quite clearly. I agree, by the way. This is important."

"I know, I just don't think we should be silly about it," Raye groans, rubbing his face. "You're turning my wife into another genius, L. Don't forget that people still need to eat and sleep to function."

L glances briefly at Mail, who has possibly not slept at all in the past four years, and whose meals consist of an annual cup of tea.

It would be useful to get by on such modest commodities, but L's not sure he has the emotional capacity to survive solely on pure, unyielding, all-consuming sorrow.

"Yes, I understand that," he murmurs. "Trifle is part of a balanced diet."

"Forget it," Raye mutters, and wanders off. Presumably to put his head into a sink. L turns back to the map.

"So these are the locations of all of the attacks so far," Rae ponders, hovering over the table. "Hm."

L can neither comprehend nor justify the Shinigami's interest in human cases.

"So, it seems like the cases are pretty evenly spread around," Naomi informs him, touching the map in several places. "Two in the city itself, two over the north side of town, and one each in the southern, eastern, and western suburbs."

"But still in the same district," L muses. "Clearly the variation would have done little to prevent the murderer from being caught."

"I think we should focus on trying to find where he's keeping the children," Naomi adds. "He obviously doesn't want them dead straight away, and eight kids will be difficult to hide."

"Hm. None of the victims were families that had older children. I wonder what he'd do if he found a child over the age of seven? Kill them or take them?"

"What a horrible thing to ask," Raye says, stomping back into the room, minus his jacket and tie.

"But necessary," L comments. "To catch a murderer, you must first think like a murderer."

"Can we give this guy a name?" Naomi asks, shuffling through her papers again. "It's irritating to refer to suspects as 'the murderer' or 'the attacker' all the time."

L shifts a little, uncomfortably.

"Uh, who's going to think of a name?" Raye asks sadly, and Naomi jerks her head, apparently realising what she's just requested.

The hole in their team has not closed over.

The silence that fills the room is sudden and awkward.

And perhaps, deserved.

* * *

The next day, he sends Raye and Naomi out to investigate the scenes of crime. L stays in their makeshift base with Mail and does a little research into large buildings that have been recently rented or bought.

He elects to stay inside twenty-two percent more frequently than he did before the Kira case. He needs to keep his face hidden, after all.

For as long as possible.

L pushes one hand through his messy hair. He went back to the Tracking Library last month, and discovered only one thing. Once someone has entered hell, the library does not record whether or not they've left.

_'So, you know about redemption, huh?'_ had been the librarian's exact words. '_Not many people are aware of that. I wonder who you'll tell?_'

Same woman as last time. Always the same woman. L wonders if she lives in the place.

Huh. At least she'll be safe from Shinigami.

The whole situation is a little troubling. If there _is_ another world - a third world, identical to this one - then what will he find there? What happens if Misa Amane is redeemed? Or, heaven forbid, Light Yagami?

Or the Shyster.

Or countless other people L's offended in the past. People who know his face, if not his name. People who can broadcast that face, and finally say _this is L, this is who he is_. People who can track him down.

Eventually, he'll have to be a complete recluse. Eventually, he'll have to run forever.

Or else, to survive, he'll have to be worse than they are.

L shakes his head slowly. No time for that now. He has a murderer to capture. Steve. Mail's idea. Or rather, the name that Mail finally snarled at them after both Penbers burst into tears and L pressed his forehead against his knee.

_It's just a reference, you fucking morons. _

Mail is getting worse, too. L can sense it. He put his hand on a burning stove two days ago, and didn't notice until Naomi yelled at him. The only thing keeping him alive is the fact that he believes nothing will change if he dies. He spends hours upon hours staring out of the window with the rosary in his fingers and his lips moving slightly.

Sometimes, L fervently wishes he could find a way to erase Mello from Mail's mind. Chronic mourning is tremendously unhealthy and useless. And it's gone on far too long. Mail looks like more of a skeleton than Rae.

And there's nothing L can do. He cannot promise. He cannot order. He cannot protect them, these boys that he named and owned and loved. His almost-children. He can't do a damned thing for either of them.

L hates feeling powerless. He would give anything. He'd give just about _anything_.

Isn't that why he started catching criminals, after all? Because of _that boy_ - whose name L has never been able to recall - standing at the edge of that filthy primary-school baseball field and bleeding tears into the sparsely-grassed dirt. Because of the way his shoulders heaved up and down, sobbing in the bleak sunlight, like he couldn't breathe and never would again. Because of the way everyone just walked on by, like they had nothing to say, like it wasn't happening, like nobody was dead.

_I don't understand, Ryan. What did my dad ever do to that lady?_

_That lady._

_That lady._

So long ago.

There are certain events that even L cannot handle, cannot bear to recall, so he keeps them buried deep in the past. Pushed behind everything else in his buzzing, overfull mind. Hidden by omission, made fuzzy by the passage of time. But lately, just lately, they memories have been...vivid. He wishes he could stop remembering. He's weaker now, maybe weaker than ever before. It's the grief, it's the stress. It's his own humanity seeping through.

No one else knows the story. The officers involved all hid the case, edited the details, and then rewrote them altogether. To protect the innocent, or so they said. No one knows, not even Watari. Only L.

It's his secret.

Sometimes he wants to tell someone else. He's not sure who. Someone moral, intelligent, and compassionate. Someone like Naomi, maybe. Or Matsuda.

Or…Mello?

Because sometimes, just sometimes, he wants to be judged. He wants someone else to define him as the things he's always claimed to be. He wants to know - because he's honestly not certain any more - if he did the right thing.

His whole life based on that one decision, so long ago, and now he's not certain.

L stomps hard on that thought, and shoves it back into its tiny, dark little box. He needs to focus. There are innocent lives that need to be protected, and _that's_ his goddamned job.

* * *

The others come back with information. In every single incident, there is no evidence of anyone entering or leaving the building. Shots were fired, screams were heard, but no attacker was ever observed, even after the police had been and gone.

"And I don't need you to tell me that's crazy," Naomi adds, glancing up from her report. "One assailant and one child cannot simply vanish."

"I did some research with the top tech companies, just to be certain," Raye adds, sounding a little disgusted with himself. "There haven't been any advances that could make someone appear invisible."

"The lady who lived next to the Cunninghams said something strange, though," his wife says thoughtfully. "She said she saw a ghost in their backyard, right after the shots were fired. Immediately afterwards, apparently."

"She was home at the time?" L asks immediately. Best to focus on the useful details, after all.

_Suspicious. Why would anyone make up something so very far-fetched? If she'd been doing something wrong, why not concoct a more plausible story?_

"She was in her car, parked in her driveway, doing her makeup."

"Saw it in the mirror, apparently," Raye tells him.

"She described it as 'a hooded grey creature moving so fast it was just a blur'," Naomi clarifies.

L politely resists the urge to roll his eyes. Glass surfaces contain flaws, and glint where they're struck by light. Seeing a blur in glass is hardly noteworthy in a serious investigation.

"A hooded creature? A _person_, perhaps?" he says acidly.

"Funny how the more the media says something is physically impossible, the more people suddenly 'see' supernatural beings," Raye agrees crossly, wiggling his fingers in the air to illustrate his own quotation marks. "Honestly, I just want something _concrete_."

"We did get some concrete facts, baby."

"Then please," L implores. "Divulge them. No more useless information."

"Two things," Naomi informs him, maybe a little proudly. "One, every single victim was shot through the back."

"How cowardly," L says, propping his chin up on one hand. "So our Steve can't even face his victims."

"And two," Raye cuts in, "and may I add, it took me all _day_ to confirm this-"

"You may not add," L says crisply. "We have wasted enough time."

"Fine. Judging by tyre prints in the local areas, the same car was parked about a block away from four of the affected houses."

L lifts his head.

"That is incredibly important information," he says calmly, and Raye fidgets a little.

"I'll say," Rae mutters.

"I can't confirm the times, of course," the older man mumbles. "It could be that this vehicle showed up as part of the investigation team, but the tyres aren't standard for a police vehicle, and it's strange to be parked so far away if you haven't done anything wrong, right?"

"Right, honey," Naomi says. She reaches for his hand, looking inexplicably smug. "It's strange, at the very least."

"We're lucky for all the dirt roads and driveways around here, or such an observation would never have been possible," L reminds them. "We need to try and get footage of this vehicle."

"Already got film from six different cameras," Naomi says brightly. "Three were from shops facing the Davis' house, one was from a security camera in the train station next to the Arnold's house, and the other two are from the first news crews on the scene at the Gordon's house. That particular attack had a big media impact, it was when people first realised something strange was going on."

"That's good," L says genuinely. He delicately retrieves a cherry from the bowl by his chair. "All right. M, I want you to go through the footage. All of it. Find me that reoccurring car. R, I want you to work with M on this one. And N, I want you to help me find the pattern."

"The pattern?" Naomi asks, momentarily confused.

L smiles.

"Even if we can link the murders and kidnappings to the owner of the car, we still have no motive right now. The only similarity between the families who were attacked were the ages of their children. I want to know what attracted Steve to those particular children."

"You don't think it was random?"

"Perhaps," L answers. "But it would be a silly thing to overlook. I have the case files from all eight children right here."

He reaches over the back of his chair and retrieves a giant file folder, emblazoned with the local police insignia. It's so heavy he can barely lift it with just two fingers.

"Ah," Naomi says. "You want me to process those for you?"

"Yes, please."

He's out of fruit. Perhaps he will get Watari to bring more.

"This case," Rae says, without moving from its position by the window. "Something's off about it."

L only raises his eyebrow, but he notes that observation, along with everything else.

About non death note related matters, the Shinigami is very rarely wrong.

* * *

The vehicle is blue Ford Falcon, and it's visible on two of the recordings at two separate houses. Raye uses his considerable observational talent to confirm that it has the exact same wearing in the tyres as the marks he'd found. A perfect match.

It is registered to a Mr Bernard Holland, a practicing psychic.

"Go_damn_it," Raye says, thumping his fist against the arm of his chair. "Is this whole case going to be weird?"

"You're overreacting," L informs him blandly. "Psychics have no real power, other than the power of suggestion and sleight of hand. Therefore, his occupation has no bearing on his possible methods of killing."

"Speaking of methods of killing," Naomi says uncomfortably. "L, it's not as if there haven't been cases in the past where people have killed without even being in the same country. Sitting in a car a block away is kind of a step down, don't you think?"

"If you're referring to the use of death notes, you should just say so," L says softly. "The more obscure the referral, the greater the fear. With regards to this case, why use a death note to shoot people in the back? Much more innocuous and accidental methods of death could be used, surely."

And that's bothering him. It's likely, based on accounts from various witnesses and circumstantial evidence, that no one enters the homes and no one leaves. Yet if the murderer is using a rigged gun, or some other remote device, why aim so precisely for the back? What does it matter? It's not as if a gun will be put off by the expression of terror on the face of the victim.

Shooting in the back, strictly speaking, is something that is only done when a human is killing another human in close proximity.

"It's possible," Naomi says stubbornly.

"It is certainly a possibility," L agrees. He presses one hand to his chest. His own note is safe. Nothing to worry about.

"So is it possible that the Cunninghams' neighbour recognised Holland, and therefore associated ghosts?" Mail asks boredly. "Because it's a pretty unusual coincidence, otherwise."

"Not necessarily," L says, pressing his thumb to his lower teeth. "A psychic would _want_ to appear frightening, or at the very least, ethereal. It makes sense. However, there is only an eight percent chance that Holland is Steve. Our next move is to find that car and follow it. Up until now, an attack has occurred once every four days. Our odds of some movement over the next forty-eight hours are very good. Seventy-four percent likelihood."

"Already found it," Mail monotones, and hits a few keys. "Here. It's parked on Cornfield Street, in Ragtree Grove. Not fifteen minutes drive from here. Been there for at least a few hours. Can't tell you which house it belongs to."

"That is fine," L tells him quietly, reaching for the intercom button. "Watari, please fetch the tricolour station-wagon."

The station-wagon a custom-made and very expensive vehicle L commissioned a few years ago. The entire exterior is made of little pyramid-shaped panels, which can be rotated at the press of a button and essentially change the colour of the car in under ten seconds.

He turns to the Penbers.

"I want both of you to follow this car for the next two days," he tells them. "I also want N to place taps on the wheels and under the windows. Inside, too, if you can manage it without being seen. But under no circumstances are you to get caught doing this by _anyone_, do you understand?"

She salutes firmly.

"Got it."

"Me too," Raye adds.

"Oh, and L? Haven't found any real link between the children yet. Whatever it is, it's not obvious."

"Perhaps not yet," L says thoughtfully. "But all things, eventually, become obvious."

* * *

Naomi drums her fingers on the dashboard.

"You know, this is why I left the police force in the first place," Raye complains, stretching his arms over the back of this seat. "I _hate_ stakeouts."

"That's just part of working for L, honey," she tells him distractedly. "This job has a little bit of _everything_."

"Yeah, well, there are some things I'd rather _not_ do," he grumbles and folds his arms.

They've been sitting in this car for twelve hours already, positioned perfectly behind a few dense trees so that they can see the blue Falcon whilst remaining almost completely invisible. The tricolour station-wagon has cameras fitted to the lights and rear-view mirror, and the windows are tinted so dark they aren't even legal in most countries. It's a perfect vehicle for spy work.

He's already eaten all of the food in the car, and he's thoroughly bored. And cramping.

"I'm glad you're back, you know," Naomi says, focusing solely on him for a moment. She takes his hand and smiles. She's still so beautiful, after everything. She's stronger than he is. He's realised that.

"I'm glad I'm back too," he says, honestly. He felt so ineffectual, out there, sleuthing on his own. He'd lacked both resources and genius, nothing more than an average FBI detective, running in circles and chasing petty criminals.

It's L who really makes things happen. Who really saves people. Who has the big guns and brings down the big names.

Raye still hates him, a little. But he can live with that.

L is human too, apparently. Raye hopes he doesn't break.

"If I had to guess right now, I'd say it's the place four up and across the street," Naomi tells him softly. "It's subtly done, but the security is definitely far superior to that of any of the other houses in the area."

Raye follows her line of vision. He's been trying to train himself to see what the others see, to notice the insignificant but tremendously important little details.

"The front door is a ridiculously expensive brand, and would be difficult to kick down" he notes. "And…hmm…I can count at least three locks visible externally, although two of them are almost completely hidden. Ahh…are there bars on the other side of those pulled blinds? The shadows aren't right."

He trails off, still gesturing a little to make it look like he's thinking.

"Did you spot the tripwire in front of the door?"

"Damn, no," he groans. He can see it now she's pointed it out, glinting ever so slightly in the dappled light. "Did you see the pentacle glued underneath the mailbox?"

Naomi looks surprised, for once.

"No, actually. Good eye."

She leans in and kisses him on the lips. It's just a token gesture, standard affection, but he's so happy just to be with her. His wife is amazing.

One day, things are going to be better than this. That's all the promise she'll accept, but by god, he's going to make it happen. Somehow.

"Could you pay attention, please?" an unwelcome voice blurts over his headset. "Neither of you have noticed the fact that the gap under the door has been stuffed, the fact that the windows on the left side have been painted black, or the way the house has been designed so that there appears to be no cellar, even though there's clearly an underground level. It's obvious if you look just where the pseudo-foundations meet the ground."

Raye would dearly love to just shut off L's goddamned video and audio feed.

"We can do this, you know," he says tersely. "Besides, we'd already spotted the high security, what does it matter if we notice every detail?"

He's being petulant, he knows that.

"Strange, too," L says thoughtfully. "The garden seems to have unusually large earthworms. The holes in the soil are five times the size of every other house in the area. Yes, I think this should be your primary target."

"I really, really hope that we're not dealing with Holland himself," Raye mutters. "We already know that guy is crazy."

"Well, kidnapping eight children in a couple of weeks is pretty crazy," Naomi says ruefully. "I don't like our chances."

Raye examines the picture on the dashboard. It's a few years old, the only one M could dredge up from the internet. It depicts a tall, well-built young man clad in a velvet robe. He has a shaved head, and a large number of occult jewellery items draped all over his person. Adorning his left arm is a tattoo of a massive red snake, fangs bared.

"Whatever," he says, irritably. "I just want to get this over with."

They couldn't get bugs inside the car - the vehicle was hooked up to more alarms than a standard shopping centre - but they managed to place one small visual tap right at the top of the windscreen, so that they'll have a clear view of the face of the driver. Mail can lip-read astoundingly well, even better than L himself. He ought to be able to transcribe anything that Holland - or whoever it is - has to say.

And if all else fails, Raye is going to follow that car. He's going to find the house of the next set of victims, and he's going to get in there fast enough to save all of them.

Because he'll never forgive himself if he doesn't.

* * *

It's late by the time the door opens, but Naomi knows that time of day has varied greatly for all the other cases. A bald, heavily decorated man emerges from the depths of the high-security house, fiddles with something on the inner part of the door before closing it, and strides very carefully out to the front gate. He has a torch in his hand, and he shines it into the windows of the yellow car parked across the street. And then the white car behind it. And then the two cars beside that.

A moment later, bright light streams briefly into their car, and then stops. Apparently, the man found nothing out of the ordinary.

She exhales as she hears two car doors slam. Two. Interesting. Carefully, she sits back up and peers into the darkness.

"Did you get a decent visual on him?" she asks L softly.

"Yes, it's definitely Holland," L tells them. His voice sounds sleepy and relaxed, like it always does when he's thinking hard. "He's acquired a few new artifacts since the picture was taken, but other than that, he's barely changed. And now we know where he lives. Oh, and he also opened and closed a passenger door before he entered the car, yet he is undoubtedly alone, and did not put anything into the car during that time."

_Strange_, Naomi thinks. So far, everything about this case is strange.

"And he's carrying some sort of anti-camera device," Mail's deadpan voice adds. "The visual from your cameras went blurry for a second when he first got to his car and opened that door."

"Oh fuck," her husband laments. "You mean it really is-"

"An illusion," L cuts him off firmly. "Remember, this man wants to appear to be supernaturally powerful. "

Naomi knows that L will be able to see Holland's face, but not much else. Even with the tap, they still don't have much idea of what's going on in that car. The thought bothers her a little.

"Follow him, please," L instructs. "Keep a distance of at least one hundred metres until he pulls over."

She runs her finger over the button and changes the colour of the car from blue to black.

"No problem," she says dutifully.

* * *

Bernard Holland drives across town, making his way along various winding back-alleys and suburban streets. L perches in his chair, leaning forward a little to maximise his visual intake of the monitoring screen.

"He is certainly not behaving like someone who has nothing to hide," he comments, wiggling his toes against smooth office-chair leather.

Mail shrugs his bony shoulders.

"That blur we saw," he says flatly, replaying the image over and over again on his own laptop screen. "Just here. I could describe that flaw as 'something hooded and grey'."

L glances at it briefly.

"Yes, perhaps it does look a little ghostly. Tricks of light often do. That is probably how our early ancestors first came up with the concept of spirits, after all."

He wonders why Mail is bringing it up. He's hardly inclined to believe in such nonsense.

The younger man raises his head a little, his expression concealed by a curtain of greasy, dark-brown hair.

"I just wonder…is it possible that this guy has some sort of technology that enables him to automatically conceal something in any image that's taken?"

L cocks his head.

"Something that distorts an area on both mirrors and cameras, you mean? Fascinating. I don't even know how one would go about making such a device. And that means he's either using it to conceal another person or a weapon – which makes sense, given that he opened the passenger door – or he's using it simply fuel the fear surrounding his actions."

"What a douche," Mail pronounces. "Anyway, if he had a death god, there'd be no need to blot it out."

On cue, Rae waves one skeletal hand in front of Mail's face and grins broadly at L, who rolls his eyes.

_Childish, you are_.

"It's highly unlikely we're dealing with something supernatural," L agrees.

"We'd have a hard time finding a motive," Mail agrees. He's more talkative than usual. L doesn't dare to wonder whether he's coping a little bit better. With the way Mail has been acting recently, it's far more likely that he's simply entered the next stage of psychological degeneration.

It's been four years. So long. _So_ long. L cannot imagine what it's like. He's never been in love. He guesses that his feelings towards chocolate-rippled strawberry-and-almond fudge don't really compare.

Not that he doesn't have a heart. He's not _Rae_, after all. He simply relegates it to a more helpful role, namely maintaining his function as an ethically-superior human being.

He only wishes he could be more certain the he is, in fact, ethically superior. Because, well.

_Electric chair_.

L forces his attention back to here and now. He scrawls a message over his notes.

_'Is there anything that you can see that I can't?'_

"Eh," Rae says stolidly. "The new charms around his neck seem to be a solid gold pentacle bracelet, something that looks like dice made out of bone on a piece of cord, and a pewter pendant of a giant worm's head with fangs."

_'I know that. I do have a 'magnify' function on this computer_.'

"To make up for your inadequate eyesight, you mean? Goodness, you're practically an old man. It almost won't be any fun to kill you when this is all over."

_'Perhaps the queen will stop you_.'

"Fuck," Mail says darkly, completely oblivious to their argument. "He's talking, but I can't make out what he's saying. Move your lips, you fuckhead!"

"Perhaps your time will be up anyway."

_'Perhaps_.'

Rae doesn't like the queen. L has recently taken great pleasure in bringing the unknown Shinigami up at every possible opportunity.

"But anyway, if you're asking whether I can see a giant monster lurking where that blob is, the answer is no. If there is something there, it's man-sized, hooded, and moving really fucking fast."

_'I really ought to teach you better human words. I feel like I've let you down, somehow_.'

"And now I'm ignoring you," Rae says haughtily, and floats off.

L has never had siblings. In all his life, he's never considered anyone to be a brother or sister to him. Not when he was very young, not when he was at the orphanage, not even now, with the strange pseudo-family he's created for himself. But sometimes, when it's a good day, when Rae isn't beating his head against a wall every second, when they just banter and squabble and insult, he thinks maybe that's what it must be like.

Great. He always wanted to be related to a Shinigami. Especially one that's either going to make him evil or kill him.

As if it can read his mind, Rae looks over its shoulder.

"You do realise any human with a functioning sense of morality would just write his name down, right now," it says callously. "Are you actually going to let him get to the house and take another two lives and add another kid to his underground porn ring first? You're sick."

"I understand the consequences of my actions," L mutters under his breath. They don't even have any sort of concrete evidence that Holland is involved in the crimes. If he were inclined to use the note, he wouldn't use it on someone with a six percent chance of guilt.

"And they're stopping," Mail announces. "Trajectory suggests he's going to pull over by number 22 on this street. Blue house. Red trimmings. Two cars in the driveway, I'd say everyone's home."

Adrenaline surges through L's veins, making him strong. Or maybe it's just the maple syrup he had for brunch. And afternoon tea. And dinner.

"Get me any other visuals you can on that house," L orders. "We need to see all parts of it."

He switches the communicator back on.

"N? R? You seeing this?"

"He's pulling over."

"He's probably going to look around again," L agrees. "Park out of sight and get ready to hide in the car. Wait for my signal to leave the vehicle."

"Right," Naomi says.

"Oh shit," Raye whispers, which is often as much confirmation as L gets from him.

"Tell Jeevas there's a security camera on the back neighbour's house," Rae says, suddenly by his side again. "These people seem to be really crime-aware. I wonder why he's targeting them?"

"We don't even know what he's going to do yet," L mutters, exasperated.

_Honestly, are you going to jump to conclusions this much when you're king? Or is that something you're supposed to learn from me_?

The thought jolts through him like so much electricity.

_Good grief, am I supposed to be training the future king?_

It's a bizarre thought, and he shakes it off vigorously.

"Most recent known occupants of this house are the Backstrums," Mail reports, hands moving furiously over the keypad. "Pretty nuclear family. Byron and Stacey and their little girl Grace. She's five. Goes to kindergarten. Fits the profile."

L stares at the screen.

"He's stopped," Naomi informs him unnecessarily.

"Yes," L tells her. "So why isn't he moving?"

He leans over even further. A lesser man would be in danger of falling. Holland is just sitting where he is. Smiling. Silent.

He had most definitely been talking to himself earlier, during the drive. His speech had been animated, but lacking in proper enunciation. Which means that Mail will need time to provide an accurate transcript.

Which means that right now, L is going to have to make an impromptu decision. Without that information. Without any information at all, really.

"Something moved," Rae says, jabbing one long finger at the screen.

"Hey, whoa, there's that blob again, right over the lawn."

"I don't get it," Naomi continues. "L, he's just sitting here."

"Did you see anything move in their yard just now?" L asks her.

"What? No. We were focusing on the car."

_And from that angle, the yard won't even be in their peripheral vision_, L thinks carefully. _It's possible he's sent something up there._

L presses his thumb to his lower lip.

_We already think he might be transporting a weapon to the victims' homes_.

_Or has the weapon been planted in there already?_

"L! What do we do?"

It's his job to protect people, isn't it?

"Get inside!" he replies, decisively. "Now. Take your guns and go diagonally. Jump the neighbour's fence and cross through that yard. He shouldn't be able to see you."

"We're going to blow our fucking cover!" Raye says hysterically as he wrestles the door open. L watches them scramble across freshly-cut lawn.

_Whatever it is, it either can't or doesn't kill immediately_, _or we'd be too late by now_, L theorises. _I wonder if Holland comes in later to take the child_. _It wouldn't be hard to go unnoticed, after something like this._

"The front door never opened," Mail informs him. "At least, not according to our footage."

"But we can't see all doors and windows," L says. "That doesn't mean nothing has gotten into the house."

Naomi reaches the front door just as the first shot rings out from inside.

"Shit," Mail says laconically, without any particular concern. "You're good, L."

* * *

Naomi runs when she hears gunshot. It's not a decision, it's just a reaction. She used to be trained to run away. Since she started working full-time with L, she runs _towards_. But she always runs.

Outside, she can hear nothing. No response from Holland. So even if they find it - the weapon, the murderer, whatever it is that's in here - he can play innocent.

Great.

Raye is somewhere behind her, and she desperately hopes he's not going to get hurt. Outside she hears a car engine start up, and goosebumps prickle down her arms. There's at least one other door leading out of the house. The thoretical accomplice could have used it to escape. Or Holland could have left them behind. Or they might not exist at all.

She makes it into the living room. Blood. Two bodies on the floor. A blonde woman and a dark-haired man. Bullet-wounds, one apiece, neatly between the shoulder blades.

No movement. No breathing. No pulse. Blood on her fingers when she checks.

"We're too late," she grits. She feels numb.

_How could we be too late? We were seconds away! What is this thing_?

"We're not too late," Raye counters, and she opens her mouth to protest that they're both so definitely dead that it's pointless even calling the paramedics, but then she realises where he's looking.

Huddled behind the sofa, silently crying.

"They didn't get the child," L's voice muses. Naomi starts. She had forgotten he was still with them on the headset.

"Are you okay?" Raye asks her softly. She stares at him with huge, watery brown eyes and then presses her face into the wall.

"N, check the house," L orders. "I've got M trying to keep visual on the car, and Watari's going to follow it. R, stay with the girl. I'll call the police. They need to know."

Naomi searches the house, top to bottom, and finds nothing. No one hidden in the closets, nothing under the bed, no gun-toting mechanism in the living room. No fingerprints, no footprints, no sign of forced _anything_.

"He certainly wants us to think it's a ghost," she whispers darkly. Downstairs, she can hear the little girl – Grace, wasn't it? – start to bawl. Her husband is talking to someone, evidently another adult. The police are here.

What she can see is a house that shows no signs of two-thirds of its occupants being violently murdered. There's leftover soup in the microwave, and toys in the middle of the rumpus room. The television is still blaring some ridiculous cartoon show. There are lilies in the master bedroom, with a little note that reads _to my darling Stacey_. In the smaller bedroom there are posters of smiling dumpy cyclops adorning the walls, and a book called _Monster Stories_ lies open on the bed.

_So fast_, she thinks. _So fast. Right under our noses_.

"You want me to show them my face as well?" she asks. "Or will I get out of here?"

"The officers that just entered the building are the ones I've been liasing with," L says as an answer. "They are trustworthy. Go downstairs."

"Camera showed the same fault as last time, in a different spot in the garden," Mail says in the background. "It was just after they got to the door. You know, if people could move at, say, the speed of sound, I'd believe it was an accomplice."

Naomi smiles at the police officers as she flashes her fake ID.

"I'm Melinda Wilks," she says smoothly.

A frightened-looking sergeant with grey hair tips his hat to her.

"Then I'm sorry you had to see this. We've…we've been getting a lot of this lately. To tell you the truth, I don't know what to make of it."

"I hope, at the very least," adds a red-haired woman, "that your boss got some useful data out of it."

"Tell them yes, this has helped advance the investigation," L instructs. Naomi can hear that he's chewing on something.

"He says that it's regrettable, but their deaths won't go to waste," she assures them. "We will catch Steve."

"Steve?"

"The nickname for our culprit," the sergeant explains. "Aliases are far more simple than describing the crime every time."

"Promising big, Naomi?" L intones in her ear. "I did not ask you to say that."

"Well, you always win, don't you?" she hisses. "That's why we're here."

"Yes, of course," he says impatiently. "I need you both to leave now. We have further work to be done."

"Right," Naomi agrees. "Come on, Charlie. We've got to get back to base."

Raye nods and steps away from Grace. She's stopped crying. Now she's just staring at the floor, clammed up and confused, rocking back and forth.

They're halfway to the door before the sergeant calls out to them.

"Er, Detective Wilks? I don't mean to impose, but you have to understand that this case has evoked a lot of fear and superstition. There's no way the killing's being done by natural means, if you know what I mean."

"That remains to be seen," Naomi tells him stonily. She has little time for silliness.

The sergeant laughs and scratches his head.

"Fuck, he's taken the bug off the car," Mail growls into the headset. "We've lost him."

"He's very clever, then," L murmurs. "And he knows someone is after him. He won't make mistakes quite so easily again. We've lost an important chance."

"What is it?" she snaps. "What do you want to say, man?"

"There isn't a police station in town who'll take this girl right now, is what I'm saying," he tells her sadly. "Everyone knows Steve'll be coming back for her. I couldn't ask it of anyone."

Naomi hesitates.

"We could take her?" Raye asks, uncertainly.

"That'd be best, yes," the sergeant agrees hopefully.

"No," Naomi says.

"No," Mail agrees.

"Er, actually, we probably don't have the best environment for a child," her husband amends quickly.

"Tell them we'll take her," L says unexpectedly.

"_What_?" Naomi demands, turning away from the roomful of eager faces. "Who do you think is going to look after her?"

"Well, we think the link is something to do with the children," L reasons. "And yes. If they do seek her here, which I doubt, then we'll be able to witness Steve's methods firsthand."

"L says yes," Naomi tells them darkly.

God, she hopes he knows what he's doing.

* * *

Grace screams when they put her in the car. Then she screams all the way back to base. Then she screams through the elevator ride to their floor. Then she pounds Raye's shoulders and screams when he carries her up the hallway and into their suite.

Then she stands in the middle of the room and bursts into tears.

"It's a leaking midget," Mail remarks, and goes back to his computer.

"Thank you for your support," Naomi says through gritted teeth.

"I have better things to do," Mail monotones. "Our footage suggests Holland was talking to himself during the drive, and I'm trying to decode what he was saying."

"Great," Naomi says flippantly. They have something, then, at least. "L? L? Come here and deal with this!"

"I _am_ here," L says, shuffling into the room. There's cherry sauce on the corner of his mouth. Naomi sighs.

_One more child to add to my collection_.

L squats down in front of the girl, examining her. She stares back at him with wide, tear-stained eyes.

"We can't keep her, and you know that," Naomi says briskly. "You wouldn't want to keep her, anyway."

L's not the sort of person who deals well with the very young. He tends to assume their intellectual and emotional age is a lot higher than it actually is.

"She can stay here until the case is finished," L decides. "Even if she is unhappy here, she will be safe, which is more important."

"Where will we put her?" Raye wonders. "Not that I mind having a kid around, but we really _aren't_ prepared."

"They're just small people, aren't they?" L asks, and Naomi clamps a hand over her mouth to stifle a groan. "She ought to sleep in the same room as one of us, under constant surveillance."

Grace picks up the hem of her dress, and uses it to hide her face from L.

"Hallo, Grace," he says serenely. "You'll be with us for a little while. Is that satisfactory?"

"Big bang," she whispers, the first words Naomi's heard her utter.

"The theory of the universe?" L says, astonished. "I didn't think her conversation topics would be so advance-"

"She's talking about _gunshot_, L!"

"Oh."

"I wanna wanna g-go home now," Grace mumbles. "Wanna go back to mummy and daddy."

"Ah, I'm afraid that's not possible," L says before Naomi can stop him. "They are dead, after all."

Grace dissolves into a fresh wave of hysterical sobbing. Raye slaps L across the back, hard enough to sting, by the sound of it.

"What did you tell her _that_ for?" he snarls.

"It's not as if she doesn't know," L says diplomatically. "She saw it happen. Hey. Hey, stop that. Grace. Grace."

"I don't want them to be dead," Grace wails. In desperation, L grabs her hand.

"Well, you're in my charge now," he tells her. "You'll be safe here with me."

Grace appears to consider this. She doesn't really understand what happened to her parents, of course. L is an idiot for trying to explain it to her. He wants to study her because they've got next to nothing else to go on, but this project is too big for his social skills. Naomi's just not sure how to tell him.

"There aren't any toys," she says unhappily, her eyes reddening.

"Do you need toys?" L enquires. "We have food and amenities, and plenty of furniture."

"Why do you look like a panda?" Grace asks curiously.

"She seems to like him, if nothing else," Raye says dubiously. "I mean, at least she's doing things other than crying."

"I…don't. I'm neither hairy nor herbivorous."

"That's a funny word," Grace tells him, and cracks a smile.

"Great," Naomi says, rubbing her hands together. "She's all yours, L."

"What?" L asks, nonplussed.

"This is your project, and you seem to be the one she likes, so you're responsible for the small child, that's what," Naomi says curtly. "Raye and I will get you some supplies, and the rest is up to you."

"Ah, okay," L says awkwardly, and Grace attempts to crawl into his lap. "Er. How do I get her to stop this?"

"You can't. Consider this your motivation to beat Steve."

"You are being very unhelpful," he admonishes.

"Yes," Naomi agrees. She's rather enjoying it, actually.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ sorry about the late update (again). am really struggling with this plot-line, and I'm trying to make sure there aren't any huge gaping holes in it.

+ thank you


	18. Doubt

notes/warnings

+ language

+ deliberately mispelled words, a la five year old.

* * *

**Doubt**

L purchases a bed for Grace. It's cushy and purple, and it has a cage-like structure over the top. Theoretically it's intended for much younger children, who might be inclined to roll out of bed and hurt themselves. But L is using it to stop anything from getting _in_.

He sets up infrared lights and cameras around the bed, and has Watari test the walls and floor of his room for weak spots and hidden hollows. The two of them place taps outside, through the rest of their suite, in the hall outside, and at the entry to the hotel.

Nothing can get in. Not without announcing itself first. L is absolutely certain of his surroundings. Safe.

Safe.

Grace lazes on his bed, ignoring the dolls and building-blocks that the Penbers gave her.

"I'm bored," she announces for the fifth time in four minutes.

It's sort of like having a second, tiny, benevolent Rae.

"Don't you like your toys?" he asks.

"They're boring. Hey, do you have a monster under your bed?"

She pushes herself half off the mattress, so that her little head is almost touching the floor.

"Aww, nothing but books. No-one ever has a monster under their bed," she pouts.

_What a strange attitude to have, _L thinks. _Aren't children usually frightened of such things?_

Then again, he's not the most knowledgeable person in the world when it comes to the finer nuances of the very young._  
_

"You like monsters?" he asks carefully.

"Yeah! I want a pet bogeyman. Ooh, and I'd like to have a skellington, maybe in a coffin. That'd be fun!"

"I don't think that would be a very hygienic toy," L warns. "Human skeletons often have small particles of flesh remaining, which carry disease and odour."

"Hey!" Rae protests.

"And some of them are just evil gods," L adds, for completeness. It's unlikely that she really knows what he's saying.

"Right. I'm evil because I'm the one who wants you to save thousands of innocent people from violence and murder."

"Oh, I'm going to," L tells it. "But I'm going to do it the right way."

Even if Grace tells the others he was talking to himself, they'll presume he was actually on the intercom, or using one of his bluetooth earpieces. It's safe to reply to Rae out loud.

"The slow way. The way that kills a lot of innocent bystanders."

Grace cups her hands under her chin.

"Who are you talking to?" she enquires. "Do you have an invisible friend? Ohh…can I see him?"

L wonders if it's worth pointing out the lack of logic in her last two statements, and decides against it.

"No, but I can talk to the other people in this building without being in the same room as them," he tries, instead. "You see, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so it'll seem like magic to you."

"When are my parents coming back?"

L hesitates, and searches for the right response.

"Later?"

"Okay. I like you."

"Erm…okay. You too, I suppose."

"Yay!"

* * *

Grace has complained of being hungry on three hundred and twenty-two separate occasions by the time Mail finally brings him a typed transcript of Holland's monologue. It's filled with spelling errors, as always, but the formatting is perfect.

Sometimes L wonders if Mail's already gone insane. Maybe it would be better for him if he did, if it let him forget.

"Thank you," L says sincerely.

"Oh, I don't think it's going to make things any easier," the younger man warns. "There's some weird shit going on in that guy's head."

"Weird shit!" Grace states happily, and collapses in a fit of giggles

L examines the sheets of paper dangling from his fingers.

_'Will you shut up?'_

_'Stop moaning.'_

_'Do you want to be all alone for the rest of your miserable life?'_

"Does he think he's communing with some sort of demon?" L asks curiously.

"I like demons! They have horns!"

"Grace, you need to be silent now."

"Okay!"

'_Listen, we're gonna make it work today.'_

_'I told you, according to this research, this one is stronger than the others.'_

'Something something _medical records_.'

"Missed that one, did you?"

"I don't claim to be infallible," Mail growls. "If it's not good enough for you, do it yourself."

"L, what's an infallible? Can I have one?"

"Hmm."

'_Look, just shut up and do what I tell you_.'

"Who is he talking to that's so reluctant?" Rae asks. "He's not just conversing with a demon, he's…persuading it?"

"He's giving orders," L corrects. "And what does he mean by 'stronger'?"

"I want an infallible! I want an infallible!" Grace demands, tugging rhythmically on the leg of his jeans.

'_We only need four or five good ones, and we'll be all set.'_

_'You won't be alone any more, and I…I will become what I was always meant to be. A god_.'

"Oh," L breathes, as the sheets of paper flutter carelessly to the floor. "Another one."

"Aww, you made a mess!"

"I know, right?" Mail says calmly. "This guy is as much of a megalomaniac as Light was. Thank fuck he's not as smart. The rest of the transcript is just random swearing after we broke into that house."

"I want a megalomic! I want one!"

"He got the bugs off his car pretty damn fast," L counters. It's suddenly freezing. Someone must have set the air-conditioner temperature too low. That's the only possible explanation for the way he's trembling.

_Light. Another Light_.

He shakes his head fiercely.

"We still have no evidence we're dealing with anything paranormal," he says sternly.

"Uh, I know that," Mail mutters, already wandering back to his computer. "Just fucking crazy, that's all."

"Right," L agrees. "Right."

_And now he knows we're after him. _

"Fucking crazy!" Grace agrees energetically.

L grabs his own laptop. He needs to work. Something useful. What leads do they have left?

_Something about medical records._

"I wonder just how difficult it is to hack into the database for a medical centre," L muses. "It's worth finding out, don't you think? We'd know just how skilled Holland is, if nothing else."

He hunches his shoulders and immerses himself in the task at hand.

Three minutes later, he un-immerses himself, because Grace needs to use the bathroom.

* * *

Watari arrives back at base an hour later.

"Well, if there's anything untoward going on, it isn't in the house. That place is as clean as a whistle. And search as I might, L, I couldn't find the car. Whoever he is, he's fairly adept at hiding."

"Don't say that," L retorts quickly. "There's nothing special about Holland. We'll catch him."

"Right," Raye says emphatically. Naomi, of course, reads L a little better.

"It's the god thing, right?" she asks. Her hair is wet, and she's threading it absentmindedly into some sort of complicated braid. "To be honest, it's bothering me, too."

"Well, if nothing else, I know he's not necessarily a genius," L informs them. "You certainly don't need to be M to access private medical records in this country."

"Great," Naomi groans. "So that doesn't narrow it down, either."

"Yeah, but why 'stronger'?" Raye queries. "Is he only going after really fit, healthy children? If so, why so? Can we work out what exactly his selection criteria is?"

"Or is that just psychic-speak for chakras, or something?" Naomi debates. "I mean, this man is clearly not stable. And he's definitely not logical."

"Unless he is, and he really _does_ have a demon."

At this point, L would usually get to his feet and slouch around the room, but he can't, because there is a small child sleeping on him. He'd very much like her to go on sleeping. Children apparently don't have an 'off' switch, despite being desperately in need of one.

"M? Can you find me the medical records of all of the children who've been taken so far? And those of Grace Backstrum?"

"I'm Grace Backstrum!"

"I thought you were asleep," L says diffidently. "Anyway, when you find them, transfer them to N for analysis."

"Right!" Naomi agrees enthusiastically. "Let's see if we can work out what he's looking for. If nothing else, it'll help us to predict the next victims, right?"

"I want a pear! L, L, L, L, I always have a pear after my nap. I want a pear!"

"Watari," L says wearily. "Please give me your photographs and report, and fetch a pear."

Watari laughs a little, and L glares at him. He cannot fathom why the others are enjoying Grace's presence so very much.

"Yay, pear!"

"So easily pleased," Naomi says indulgently. "She really should go to bed for the night, L. It's getting late."

"Hiiii!" Grace bubbles. "What's your name, lady?"

"My name is N."

"That's a letter of the alphalphabet!"

"It's like the alphabet, but with salad vegetables," Raye translates with a stage whisper. "Oh, L, I've got something on Holland too."

L groans inwardly. Since Grace arrived and attached herself to him, he's the only member of the team who hasn't made any sort of progress with the investigation. He feels useless, like he's been demoted to the role of babysitter. Or housewife.

Never mind. Once she's fed and properly awake, he's going to interview her. She's part of the evidence, after all.

"What did you find, R?"

"This guy...he's got followers."

L raises his head. He sets Watari's documents down on the table, out of Grace's reach, and gives Raye his full attention.

_It starts_.

"A murderer-kidnapper has _followers_?" Naomi asks incredulously. "Even if people did agree with what he's doing, who would be stupid enough to actually _admit_ that?"

"Holland, not Steve," Raye clarifies.

"Ah, yes," L says thoughtfully. "There is an eighty-four percent chance that Holland is actually Steve."

Grace busies herself with a new game. It seems to mostly involve hitting L over the head with one of her plush toys. It's mildly irritating. Naomi gapes at him.

"Even after that little speech he gave in the car? How can you possibly say he still might be innocent?"

"Delusional is not the same as criminal," L justifies. "Besides, he may _believe_ that some supernatural force under his control is responsible for the murders, even though an entirely different party is actually performing the crimes."

"But there was _no one in the house_," Naomi says loudly. "No one!"

"Perhaps remotely, then," L amends. "But as I said, I am not completely convinced. This is a complicated case, and we would be foolish to oversimplify it. Holland strikes me as the sort of person who would be easy to frame. Keep that in mind."

"Right," Raye says, a little distractedly. "Anyway, Holland is huge online. Seems like he has a lot of fans around the world who believe he can actually perform magic, read minds, that sort of thing."

L considers this. Focusing is a little harder than normal, because Grace is presently trying to insert one of her blocks into his ear.

"Any mention of intended world domination on his fan-site?"

"Nope. He seems like a regular, self-important psychic," Raye confirms. "I guess that's not really a useful finding at all, right?"

"It is absolutely useful," L corrects. "Really, R, you're very poor at assessing the value of the information you glean."

"I'm really not sure if that's a compliment," Raye admits awkwardly.

"I'm bored again!" Grace announces.

Thankfully, Watari chooses that particular moment to come back into the room, bearing fruit. Grace decides she'd prefer eat than make noise, at least for a little while.

"L, our camera shows that Bernard Holland has returned home," Watari informs him politely. "Evidently he does not suspect that we know where he lives."

"That is good news," L agrees. "The camera was placed as prescribed?"

"Right across the road," Watari tells him.

"Thank you. There's a dangerously high chance he'll find any bugs located in his own house, but I doubt he'll be paranoid enough to search his neighbours."

"I don't like bugs! They have legs!"

"That's enough," L tells her quietly. "Eat your pear."

Watari nods to him once more and leaves without L needing to dismiss him. Every so often, L is reminded just how lucky he is to have found such an intelligent and well-trained employee. He flicks through the notes and photographs. It seems that the only definitively suspicious thing inside the house is the exorbitant level of security. Aside from locks, bolts, and tripwires, the house contains nothing more than standard clairvoyant paraphernalia. A giant map of the constellations on one wall, tarot cards on the table, various pagan symbols etched into the ceiling. Tacky but expensive jewellery stashed in the hidden basement. A few spiders in jars. No hidden weapons. No death notes.

Of course, there's no guarantee that there isn't, say, a powerful computer hidden inside the shabby-looking desktop in the bedroom. Or a large gun stashed inside the Hindi statue in the living room. But there's definitely nothing overt.

Right. Time to advance this case, then. He's growing tired of it.

"So...what do you want me to do?" Raye asks carefully.

L smiles at him benevolently.

"You," he says, "are going to become Holland's number one fan."

Raye frowns at him.

"Say what?"

"Holland is the sort of man who loves attention," L surmises. "He already thinks he's famous. He has a collection of _fan mail_ sitting on his kitchen counter. He'll lap up any attention from someone who claims to be a supporter...no, a _believer_."

_The new Misa Amane. _

If he'd thought of this eight years earlier - if _he'd_ planted and controlled Amane, Light's adoring and trusted fan - then he'd still be alive.

He's not making the same mistake twice.

"This is yummy!"

"Didn't I tell you to be silent?" L asks heavily, and turns back to Raye, who is staring at L with a slack jaw. "Look, it's fairly simply. According to my calculations, there is no possible way that Holland saw your face at the Backstrum house. He won't recognise you. But you'll know everything about him - everything that's been made public, at least - and he'll be your hero. Oh, and you'll want to interview him for a small, local, struggling newspaper. He's never been in the paper."

"Right," Raye says, swallowing hard.

"Left!"

"I will take the pear away," L warns.

"So...what exactly am I trying to get from Holland."

"Interview him. Find out what he wants from life. Does he have a significant other? Does he want a family? Where does he see his business in five years time? How does he feel about children? Does he think he gets the attention he deserves from society in general?"

"I'm profiling him," Raye says, with sudden understanding. "I see. Is this so that you know how much like...that person...he really is?"

"Really, you can be very small-minded sometimes," L snorts. Raye is correct, but nobody ever needs to know that. "We're trying to find out what he's chasing in the children, what his expertise level is, and where he spends his time when he's not at home. With perfectly innocent questions, of course. If nothing else, he'll trust you. He won't be too surprised if you show up again. In fact, he'll expect it."

"This is a big job," Naomi notes. "You up to it, honey?"

"Of course," Raye says tersely. "I'm up for anything that means we get this fucker in jail a little faster. Bring it on."

"Fucking crazy," Grace agrees.

* * *

All of the surveillance from L's room feeds into the monitors and recorders in M's room. Well, technically, in the second office. M doesn't always get a bedroom of his own, because he never sleeps.

L tries not to think about that too much.

He places Grace in his favourite, most comfortable armchair. She's been fed, bathed, and played with. It's finally time to find out what she knows.

"I don't like this seat. It's green."

"I apologise for the unpleasant furniture," L says awkwardly. Sometimes he gets the feeling it would be easier to just ignore her altogether.

When this is over, maybe.

"However," he continues, "I need to ask you a few questions and then you can go."

He selects a treacle toffee from the dish on the coffee table. Sugar helps to focus the mind, after all.

"One plus one!"

"No, not arithmetic questions," he corrects. "Listen. Can you remember what happened earlier this evening? Did someone come into your house?"

"Yes! N did! And that man! Can I have a toffee?"

"Does it help you think?"

Sometimes, when he stays constantly indoors, the time of day escapes him. It's one in the morning, technically far past her bedtime, but she doesn't seem to be sleepy. So much for Naomi's theory that children always need a strict routine.

"Yes yes yes!"

L shrugs and offers her the dish. She takes two, and places the spare behind her ear.

"All right. Aside from N and R - the other man who lives here with me - did anyone else visit your house today?"

Grace sucks on her thumb for a moment, apparently contemplating her response.

"Nope. Amy was s'posed to visit, but she got chicken pox."

"Who is Amy?"

"My friend at kindergarten. I wish _I_ had a chicken."

"Please focus."

"My lolly is stuck in my hair," Grace says sadly. L resists the urge to roll his eyes.

"This is going brilliantly well, isn't it?" Rae says with mock enthusiasm. "Great idea, grilling a five year old. Say, are you going to torture her if she doesn't give you the answers you want to hear?"

L scowls at Rae. He's exhausted already. He doesn't want to deal with a petulant Shinigami as well as a painful child.

"Well you shouldn't have placed it there. So Amy is your age?"

"Nope, she's six," Grace replies, holding up four fingers.

"So approximately your age?"

"What's an appoximly?"

"Have you had any visitors to your house at all today?"

"Only sparrows. I like sparrows. They're tiny. Amy says they're actually invaders from outer space."

"No, I don't mean wild animals. I mean, er. Have there been any...bad people. People who frightened your mother and father? People who made you sad?"

"Mrs Bricks makes me sad, but she's never been to my house."

"Who is Mrs Bricks?"

"My teacher."

L rubs the back of his neck. This child is actually giving him a headache. He'd almost rather deal with Rae. Who's floated off again. The bastard.

L hunches down further, so that he's eye-to-eye with Grace.

"Do you remember earlier this evening," he says slowly and clearly. "When your parents both fell over suddenly and there were loud noises."

Her little face pales suddenly, and her lower lip wobbles.

"Yes," she whispers. "When are they coming back? I miss them."

"Um…soon?" L says hesitantly. He doesn't really understand why he isn't supposed to tell her. Eventually, she will have to know the truth. "You will be here for a little while, and then you'll go to a big house with lots of other children."

"Brothers and sisters?" Grace asks hopefully.

"Yes. So you remember when your mother and father both fell over?"

"Yes."

"Was there anyone else around at that time?"

Grace fidgets with her socks.

"Can I have another toffee?"

L sighs exasperatedly and hands her the plate. He wonders how many sweets it's going to take to help her remember.

* * *

"Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!"

"What a good job of babysitting you've done," Rae says unhelpfully, flopping down onto the bed next to L. Grace is running around the room with a toy airplane in one hand and her arms in the air, screaming. It's all she's been doing for the past fifteen minutes.

"Zooooooooooooooooooooom! Zoomzoomzoomzoom!"

"How man did she eat, again?"

"Twenty-seven," L mutters. "I don't understand why it's not helping her to remember."

"Because nobody else's brain fucking works that way, that's why! How the hell are you such a social frigging retard after all these years?"

"Why have you been sounding so human lately?" L wonders, and the Shinigami, at least, shuts up.

"Neyyooooooooooooow! Pyew! Pyew! Pyew! I got laaaaaaasers!"

Grace stops briefly to hug both of L's legs and exchange the plane for a toy dog before running off again.

"Bowowowowowoooooooow!"

There's a sharp knock on L's door, and in spite of himself, he winces a little. Naomi lets herself in.

"Good morning, L," she says, with an expression akin to metaphorical thunder. "Why is the small child _screaming_ at two thirty in the morning?"

"She has not gone to bed yet," L says stolidly. "I think she wants to keep the same hours as me."

"WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF MEEEEOOOOOWW!"

"You didn't try to question her _tonight_, did you?" Raye asks, ambling up behind his wife and rubbing at his tousled hair. "I thought we agreed she should sleep after her bath."

"She was not tired, and the case needed to advance," L reasons. It makes perfect sense. No need for anyone to be cross. "She's also had some sugar, which is presumably why she is still fairly active."

Grace runs into a wall, yells in delight, spins around, falls over, and starts giggling into the carpet.

"_Fairly_ active? L, she's…she's…_how much sugar has she had_?"

"Now you're shouting as well," L points out diplomatically. "You are not helping the noise level situation."

Naomi shakes her head in disbelief.

"Do you need to be supervised while supervising the child, L?"

"Of course not," L replies, feeling surprisingly insulted. "I am perfectly capable."

"And you thought it would be a good idea to give her sugar in the middle of the night?"

L hesitates.

"I suppose I was more focused on the case than anything else," he admits.

She's right. He ought to have known. It's basic human biology. Small bodies can only process small amounts of sugar.

So why didn't he think of it? He's _L_, for goodness' sake. What distracted him? Thoughts of Mail? Of Rae?

No, it's the case. Holland. Holland and his murdering and his god-complex. Holland, who isn't Light. Who isn't using anything supernatural or strange.

He can't shake this feeling. Not now. Not yet. With time, of course.

There will never be another Light. Never. The old one is dead and buried, and there will never be a new one.

He hopes.

* * *

When the sugar high ends, Grace looks like she's been hit with a tonne of bricks. She sits on the edge of L's bed swinging her legs and humming tunelessly.

"You ought to get into your own bed," L informs her. He's a little tired himself. Small children are exhausting. And bad for tympanic membrane health. His ears are still ringing.

"Do any monsters come out after dark?" she asks, listlessly.

A thought strikes L.

"Have you ever seen any monsters, Grace?"

"No," she replies miserably. "Will you tuck me in? My mummy always tucks me in."

"All right. You'll need to get up and move over to your own bed, however."

There are more footsteps in the hall, light enough that they must belong to Naomi. A moment later she pushes open his door for the second time that night.

"Everything's ready. M says all of the devices are working properly, and there are no blind spots in the room. She'll be perfectly safe."

"Thank you," L says, and means it. Naomi tosses something large and metallic onto his bed.

"You ought to wear this, just in case. No point in taking unnecessary risks."

"My bulletproof vest," L notes. It's been moulded perfectly to fit under his clothes so that it appears he's not wearing any armour at all. "Good idea."

They don't want anything to be too obvious. If Steve is going to come, then they want him to come. They just want him to fail during the process.

"I'll lock the door now," he tells Naomi. "Please inform M. I apologise for the trouble I caused you earlier."

"It's okay," she says wearily. "Just…if anything else happens and you're not sure how to deal with her, call me on the intercom. I don't mind. Goodnight, little one."

Grace waves to her sleepily and nuzzles the stuffed cat on her lap. L smiles to himself and shucks off his shirt. And five of his undershirts. And then Grace decides to fall promptly asleep and drop off the edge of the mattress.

He catches her awkwardly and deposits her into her lurid purple bed. Then he shuts the door firmly and carefully locks the seven unique deadbolts from the outside. Each bolt is completely fireproof and lockpick-proof. The cage will not be easy to open.

He fastens the vest over his remaining undershirt. It doesn't fit as well as it normally does, but he's got few other options with Mail watching his every move. The death note is still strapped to his chest, after all.

"Will you wake me, if anything happens to her?" he asks Rae.

"Sure, if I'm allowed to wake you by throwing you out the nearest window."

"You're so helpful," L says, around an enormous yawn. It's unfortunate that he needs to sleep tonight. It would be much better if he could stay awake and monitor Grace himself.

He hits the intercom button by his head without even thinking about it.

"Goodnight, M," he says softly.

"Good….night?" Mail asks, sounding more than a little put off. It's not the sort of thing they usually do.

He's changed. Maybe he's still changing. He's now at least three percent different to before he died.

_Why is this happening?_

_Is this the price I pay for being more human?_

_Am I turning into Touta Matsuda?_

He falls asleep before he can come up with any answers.

* * *

L wakes up at midday, and decides he wants jelly for breakfast before he even opens his eyes.

"L! L! Look what I found!"

Grace is apparently also awake. He grumbles and rolls over and pretends he cannot hear her.

She's young. She should need more sleep than he does.

Actually, his need for slumber has increased by thirteen percent over the past five years. He's getting older. Bodies still age over time, even in this second world, but the process is supposed to be a lot slower.

_Hope my mind falls apart before my body does_.

The sentence springs unbidden into his head. Just something that Watari said once as an offhanded comment, but it makes his skin crawl all the same.

He's finite. He's finite. He only has so much time.

"We're all fine in here," he mumbles into the intercom. "Please shut down the surveillance and divert your attention to hacking into Holland's computer for me, M. I want all of his files, if you can."

He's mostly awake. Grace will be safe without the extra monitoring, now.

He drowses for a little while, lost in his own thoughts, organising his mental case notes. Nothing came tonight. Does that mean that nothing will come at all? Or is he waiting?

"Wheeheehee, this is fun!"

"Go back to sleep," L orders, without moving the blanket from his face. It's good that nothing attacked her during the night, but he'd still prefer a little silence in which to properly return to consciousness.

"But this is so _awesome!_ Look what I found!"

_Found_? L thinks, frowning. _But you're locked into your bed. Did you get out? Did someone let you out_?

He raises his head cautiously. Grace is still in her bed, giggling happily. She has apparently abandoning her toys in favour of clinging to a bleached, bony arm.

"Good morning L," Rae says with the sort of intense cheeriness that indicates it wishes him a swift and painful death. "Did we somehow forget to prevent the small child from touching the death note?"

L's heart stops.

"Look! A real live skellington!" Grace says, and points. "Can you see him? I'm gonna call him Boney."

"'Your majesty' will do just fine," Rae says haughtily.

"And he talks! This is _so cool!_ Can I have a donut for breakfast?"

"Oh…god…" L murmurs. "She can see you."

"Oh, well done," Rae says acidly. "Good observations skills there, detective."

"We are best friends now, Boney. We are going to have a tea party. With real tea! Or maybe carrot juice."

_Okay, don't panic. No need to panic. She can see Rae. She can speak to Rae._

The Shinigami does whatever it does to make itself immaterial and immediately backs away from Grace's bed, free from her sticky, five-year-old fingers.

"Aww, come back here!"

Grace grabs at the cage and rattles it.

"You need to be quiet," L tells her, automatically. His mind is beyond racing. It's catapulting from thought to thought. She's only five. No-one will believe the things she says. No one will think it strange that she has an imaginary friend.

_At first_.

"You need to have better control over the people in your care," Rae says, sharply. And then it sighs. "But why would I expect anything better from _you_? If you really cared about her, you'd get rid of Holland and be done with it."

"It was an accident," L says quietly. When she fell off the bed and he caught her even though he was only half-dressed. It must have happened then. There is no other explanation.

He acted without thinking.

He should have been paying attention.

_Is this it? Have I become ineffectual? Am I…honestly not the best person to solve this case? _

_Is it time?_

Hadn't Watari devoted an awful lot of time and money to raising a successor? And Watari hadn't expected either of them to die, certainly not as soon as they did. Which means.

He expected L to wear out, eventually. L's best employee, his number one supporter, made provisions for the day that he stopped functioning. As if it were inevitable.

Why did he not realise this years ago?

"L?" Grace wails from her bed. "L? Make the skellington come baaack! It's making me sad."

Hadn't he failed to save Matsuda? Hadn't he failed to stop Light? Hadn't he failed to protect Mello?

When will there be enough evidence? Should he quit when he's one hundred percent sure he's a failure? Five percent? Anything over zero?

"What's the matter, Lawliet? Don't tell me you're actually feeling _remorseful_."

L's head snaps up.

_If I'm ineffectual, if I make mistakes so very easily, then why was I the one chosen to test the Shinigami king?_

He's thinking destructively. It's just a part of grieving. Just a part of being kidnapped. Just a part of being forced to recall the Kira case.

_Just a part of the inevitable_.

If Rae is on his side, he'll be fine. If she has adult conversations, if she appears to suddenly find out things she cannot possibly know, if she starts holding onto an invisible hand, then they'll know.

And Rae doesn't want anyone to find out he has the note.

Unless Rae has changed strategies. Which is seventy-one percent likely, because the Shinigami is severely short on time. And it is aware that the team would be devastated to find out he was concealing something so important.

If it is attempting to debase him, then it will reveal he has the death note. It's the cleverest thing to do, and his god of death is very clever.

"Can you stop this?" he asks, with clarity, and without emotion. "Can you negate her ability to sense you?"

"No," Rae snaps. "I can't. She doesn't own the note, so I can't make her forget it."

It won't be possible to simply isolate her from the others. Naomi does not trust his child-rearing skills, and Raye is somewhat fond of her. They'll be in and out, checking up on him.

"Then, I must ask you to leave the room when the others are here," he says politely. "Please. Until such times as she is no longer with me."

The Shinigami grins at him malevolently. Its eyes are like hell, and he imagines for a moment that he can see Mello in there, burning.

"Hmm. What an interesting proposal. But why would I do anything to help you? You're so corrupt, it's pathetic. Maybe I should make a stand in the human world, tell people not to trust you. She'd say anything I told her to, wouldn't she?"

Rae walks back over to where Grace is slumped against the side of her bed.

"Boney!"

"Grace! Can you say a big word for me?"

"Can I have another pear?"

"I want you to say 'L could stop this right now'. Then I'll give you a pear."

"Enough," L murmurs. "This is useless. What good will it do, even if you do manage to unseat me? You won't benefit. I still won't use the note."

"You think I wouldn't benefit from the world being a better place, even if I lose?" Rae asks. "Not everyone is as selfish as you, you know?"

_A better place. Now that's a tricky thing to define_. _If 'better' means 'not evil', then surely the world would be the best possible place if everyone in existence was dead. _

'_Better' is not the same as 'right'._

"Pear first!" Grace demands.

"You ought to have met Light Yagami," L tells the Shinigami. "You would have liked him. He was evil, like you."

Holland is probably evil, too. Or maybe L needs to stop projecting. Yes. That would be helpful.

"Are you an _evil_ skellington?" Grace asks, with an enormous amount of curiosity and very little fear. L sighs.

"I'm a _good_ skeleton," Rae says firmly.

It stops short of telling her that L is a bad man, but he hears the insinuation, just the same.

* * *

No one comes into L's room for about an hour. Rae reads Grace a story from one of her books, occasionally throwing a smirk in L's direction. L knows it's trying to buy her favour.

As if that is some sort of difficult task. She's five. And she's all alone.

And she loves monsters.

L sits at his computer, diligently ignoring both Shinigami and small child, doing further research on Holland.

He's going to beat Holland. He's going to win. And that will be that.

L feels an unfamiliar but distinct sense of dread when he hears a knock on his door. Naomi. Her husband's mission isn't until that evening, so she must have news of her own.

There's little chance that Mail would have seen anything he'd deemed unusual on the footage. It all comes down to how Grace acts right now.

And that depends entirely on Rae.

"Incoming," he warns softly. Grace is propped up against the wall, book in her hand. He imagines the scenario without the giant flaming terror that sits beside her, and assures himself that it appears to be perfectly normal.

"Come in," he calls, because there is nothing else he can do, now, except try and explain away any odd behaviour.

"Good morning!" Naomi says sunnily, mostly to Grace. "Did L give you breakfast?"

"Uh huh! Two donuts!" Grace holds up three fingers. L is somewhat perturbed by her complete lack of understanding of the concept of counting.

Naomi folds her arms sternly.

"That's not a balanced meal, L."

"I was going to get her fruit later," he reasons, without looking up. "And maybe…tomato and eggs?"

He wrinkles his nose a little at the thought of savoury food.

"She needs that sort of food as soon as she wakes up," Naomi informs him.

"All right," L tells her. "I will follow your proposed breakfast schedule for her tomorrow."

"And she can't sleep only when you sleep. She'll need at least nine hours tonight as well."

"Understood," he says, and tries to steer the conversation away from childcare. "Did you have something for me?"

Naomi tosses the newspaper on the desk.

"There's an article about Holl…about Steve," she says matter-of-factly. "I thought it might be worth a look."

"I have a skellington!" Naomi announces from her corner.

She lasted for a good two minutes. L supposes he ought to be impressed.

"Do you, honey?"

"Uh huh! He's my friend! He talks to me and reads to me and we're gonna have a tea party with real tea like L has."

"You can have real tea if it's herbal and iced," Naomi says, clearly more for L's benefit than Grace's. "I didn't even know you had a skeleton toy, honey. Which one is it?"

L freezes, eyes fixed on the computer screen. If he looks, it will be worse. He needs to act like nothing unusual has been said.

"No, silly! My friend skellington. His name is Boney, and he's right…heyyy, where'd he go?"

L does look up, then. The space beside Grace is unfathomably empty. No Rae.

He breathes out slowly. He's safe. For now.

"Really, L," Naomi chides. "Have you been paying her any attention at all? Five-year-olds should not be playing make believe on their own all day."

"Why did you buy her so many toys if they're not intended to keep her occupied?" L asks, a little obtusely. He wants to steer the topic away from Boney as much as possible. He delicately retrieves the newspaper from the tabletop, and examines the article Naomi has circled.

_UNGODLY SERIAL KILLER PANDEMONIUM_.

The headline is huge and bold, and features far too many exclamation marks. Clearly the author intends for the article to strike panic into the hearts of ordinary civilians.

_Idiots_, L thinks. _Do you not understand that's exactly what Steve wants?_

Except for that one word. Ungodly. Why ungodly? If Holland has seen the newspaper, he must be deeply unsettled by that word.

Perhaps the author is not so unhelpful, after all.

The story focuses on the Backstrum incident initially, before touching on each of the other cases. It subscribes to the popular belief that Steve is using some sort of demonic weapon or creature to commit his crimes. Predictably, one of the main interviewees is Ms Wainwright, the woman who lives next door to the Cunninghams.

'_I tell you, when I saw that creature in the mirror, oh Lord, I've never seen anything so far from God in all my life._'

The world is full of idiots, and people who jump to conclusions. It's also full of people who thrive on drama. L wonders what sort of person Ms Wainwright really is.

"Can we play a game, N?"

"If it's quick."

"No," L says decisively. "I have a job for you, N. I want you to interview Ms Wainwright."

"Awww, no fair. I miss Boney."

Naomi cocks her head.

"Why?"

"Because I want to know what she knows," L tells her.

_And then I'll have the whole afternoon with you and Raye out of the house, but you don't need to know that, of course_.

"So, just about the Cunninghams?"

"And anything else to get a feel for the sort of person she is."

Naomi nods.

"All right. M has come up with most of the medical records, but I haven't been through all of them yet."

"I'll pick up where you left off," L assures her. "This is more important."

Naomi regards him for a moment.

"You're not leaving the building for this case, huh?"

"Not until it becomes necessary," he answers, with confidence. It pays to be careful, after all.

"Understood," she says briskly. "But I'm telling Watari to keep an eye on you. Grace is only young, L. You need to be responsible."

L grins a little, and salutes her.

"I understand."

* * *

L flicks through the medical records, starting with Grace's. The person in question is busy putting fingerpaint of various colours into his hair. He's grateful for the silence. He knows it won't last long.

Grace was born severely jaundiced and had to spend a few days in hospital. She was immunised at all of the appropriate intervals. She had a mild case of influenza when she was eighteen months old that landed her an overnight stay in the local hospital, mostly due to disproportionate parental concern than medical need. A year ago her grandmother took her to a clinic for children who suffered from recurrent nightmares, which was promptly cancelled by her parents. The notes simply say '_fascinated by monsters but not frightened of them. Recommend child psychiatrist if becomes excessive'. _Last year she broke her arm and spent a few weeks in a private children's hospital on the other side of town.

And that's it. Presumably she's been completely healthy in every other way. L makes a brief note of her past ailments and turns to the next file.

_Archibald Cunningham_.

"You know what's bothering me about this case?"

"Ah," L says. "You're back, are you? Thank you for leaving. It was very….convenient."

"Oh, you're welcome," Rae says evilly. Its eyes are burning, ruby-red and awful. L looks back to his screen.

"So, what is it that's bothering you?"

"Well, no-one has actually seen this creature, have they? Don't you think that's strange?"

"BONEYYYYYYY!"

Grace launches herself at Rae and disturbingly manages to climb all the way up to its rib-cage before succumbing to gravity.

"I missed you!"

"I missed you too, Grace. Were you stuck here with nasty old L?"

_Oh, spare me_, L thinks disgustedly. _And spare her too, while you're at it. She's too good for you, Shinigami_.

"Yes," Grace says cheerfully, and Rae's grin doubles in size. "He didn't let me play any games at all. But I made his hair pretty!"

"It's lovely," Rae says. "Is L a bad person, Grace?"

"Er," Grace says uncomfortably, and sticks her fingers in her mouth. "Um. I don't know. No?"

"He is," Rae assures her. "But that's okay, because I'm here now."

"Yay! Can we have a tea party? I'll go get cups!"

Grace rushes off to her pile of toys in the corner. L glares at the Shinigami.

"Stop that," he says firmly. "I forbid you to corrupt her. She's five."

"Hey, I'm not the one who feeds her sugar and forgets to put her to bed at night," Rae points out. "She's better off with me."

"Nobody is better of with you," L says with certainty. "And what did you mean, no one has seen the creature? If no-one had seen it, no-one would be talking about it."

"Well, I mean, it makes sense if it really is some sort of visual-disturbance mechanism. But think about it. Wainwright saw it in the mirror. You've seen it on screens. But Grace _didn't_ see the thing that killed her parents. The victims were all shot in the back. Nothing has directly laid eyes on this thing. I just find that unnerving."

L props his chin up on his knee.

"That is a valid observation," he concedes. Not that he'd expect anything less from his Shinigami. "I still cannot fathom why the victims are all shot in such a particular manner. What does it matter, if they're going to die?"

"Unless they're really planning for the future, maybe?" Rae points out. "If they don't think they'll ever be caught, and they want to keep doing this in the next world, maybe they want to be sure no-one can point them out?"

"That could well be the reason," L agrees. "I'd just like to be certain, that's all."

Grace comes and sits down next to the god of death, with an armful of bright pink plastic mugs and an enormous fake teapot.

"Are you two friends now?" she asks.

"What? No!"

"No," L agrees resolutely. "Can I take your previous suggestion as proof that there is a next world similar to this one, Rae? Have you been there?"

_Where has Matsuda gone? Is he safe?_

"Like I'd tell _you_," Rae says brightly.

_Of course,_ L thinks. _Perhaps you don't even know, yourself. But if you've been around so long, why don't you know these things? And if you haven't been around long, why are you so familiar with the human world_?

He has too many questions, and not enough answers.

As always.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank so you much for reading (and reviewing!). you guys are all incredible for sticking with this huge and somewhat dodgy story for so long.

+ this plot continues to be horrible to write, and I continue to be horrible at writing it, so no guarantees for when the next bit will be posted. my apologies.


	19. Grace

notes/warnings

+ language, as always.

+ I don't think the religious themes are any more offensive than the canon itself, so I guess I don't really need to warn for those. right?

+ I have nothing against psychics and clairvoyants in general. it just so happens that this particular character is, in a word, a knob.

* * *

**Grace**

Raye feels strange. He's used to suit-shirts, dark dress slacks, and ties. Right now, he's clad in casual jeans, black boots with too much heel, and a tight yellow shirt with a big red pentacle inked onto the back. He has thick pewter rings on all of his fingers, and a realistic-looking fake tattoo around his wrist. Additionally, Naomi has applied some sort of strange purple mascara to his hair.

He feels like he's become someone he'd probably like to arrest. It's not a pleasant sensation.

_Now, we've dressed you to appear as if you're an amateur psychic. You are not to attempt to rival Holland in apparent skill or knowledge. Play stupid, be fascinated by every word he says, and smile a lot. _

He gets it. He's got a large, old-fashioned voice recorder sitting on the table in front of him, and an even larger plastic clipboard resting on his lap.

_Nothing too new or modern_, L had told him. _We don't want to scare Holland, and we certainly don't want him thinking that we might be suspicious of his strange new technology._

They don't know for sure that it's a new technology, but what else could it be? Sleight of hand only goes so far, and Mail and L themselves saw the blur. It must be something to do with computers.

Unless it's just a trick of the light. Is that even possible?

Raye doesn't understand enough about optical illusions to really theorise properly. He sucks in a deep breath and wills himself to focus. Holland had been only too happy to set up a meeting with such an enthusiastic young reporter. Naomi chose this particular café because it has a reputation for being dimly-lit, somewhat occult, and not particularly busy. Instead of chairs, there are enormous cushy sofas crowded around tiny coffee tables. The ceiling has been decorated with tiny lights, arranged to resemble constellations. There are windows, but they've been heavily tinted, possibly to give the illusion of seclusion from the street outside. The air is thick and dank with incense.

The whole place makes his skin crawl. His coffee is bitter and unpleasant. He desperately wants Holland to show up so that he can get this over with.

A familiar blue Ford pulls up outside. Raye can make out the number plate even through the heavily-tinted glass.

_Right_, he orders himself. _Kooky and fanatic. Kooky and fanatic. Act stupid and hang on every word he says. You don't think he's Steve, you just think he's God. _

_Got it_.

It's times like these that he really, really misses Matsuda. The man would have been perfect for this task. He had a smile that could disarm a tank.

Holland strides into the room. He's dressed even more eccentrically than usual, wearing some sort of green velvet cape draped over his shoulders and an oversized hat on his bald head. The number of rings on his fingers has doubled, as well, some of them adorned with diamonds and other precious jewels.

_So this is how you like to look when meeting a fan, huh?_

Raye makes a note of that, too, and grins.

_This man is a downright, outright douchebag_.

He plasters his most boyish smile on his face and gets to his feet. He manages to force his hands to tremble a little, to complete the look.

"Sir," he says brightly, and waves one hand over his head. "Over here!"

Holland smiles at him benignly, and approaches his table with utmost confidence. Raye's gaze is drawn to the fanged worm-head pendant dangling from the other man's neck. It's both grotesque and disturbing, but his smile doesn't falter.

"I can't believe it's actually you," he gushes, holding out one slightly-vibrating hand. "I've waited for this moment for years!"

He wonders if he's overdone it, but Holland's grin only broadens and he touches Raye's hand briefly, as royalty would.

_I can't even think of words to describe how much of a tool you are._

"My son," Holland croons, with a voice like chocolate. "I have forseen this meeting for many months. Rest assured that it was always meant to be."

_Must not laugh_.

"That's amazing," he says effusively. "Bellalover said you could see the future of every single person in the world, just by reading their name or seeing their face. I always knew it was true!"

'Bellalover' is the handle of an extremely well-known follower of Holland. She is also the founder of the obsessive internet fan-site of which Raye is claiming to be a member. Raye knows that mentioning her name is essential to establishing himself as a valid – and avid – supporter.

"My third eye tells me you have also contacted 'Makidesu' and 'asudem68'," Holland says slowly, wiggling the fingers of one hand in the air. He has a green jewel stuck to the middle of his forehead.

_Since they're the only two moderators of the fan-site, there's a very high statistical probability that I've spoken to them as well_.

Raye finds himself strangely relieved to be faced with proof that Holland is nothing but a fraudster. Not that he had ever really believed all that nonsense about having a 'demon creature', of course.

"That's…that's incredible," he burbles. "You…you really can see."

"I can do more than just see, my child," Holland explains kindly. "I can heal, I can wound, I can move things without being in the room. That's all part and parcel of being the chosen one."

He lowers himself into the armchair opposite Raye, chuckling indulgently.

"Of course," Raye replies, acting as if that statement makes perfect sense. "I'd…I'd love to publish an article about you, if you'd consent, sir. I don't know if Bella told you, but I work for the Northwest Times, and I just think…the world needs to know."

Holland reaches out and touches his hand.

"Well now, my son," he drawls. "Your purple aura suits you perfectly. You're kind, considerate, and mindful of others. I bet you're good at cricket, too."

Raye's never played a game of cricket in his life. He can barely tell the sport apart from the musical insect.

"How on earth did you know?" he asks dramatically.

"I always know," Holland says smugly. "But what you say, sadly, is still the truth. There are a lot of non-believers out there. Many a big, successful company don't want someone like me making too much noise, if you know what I mean."

"What _do_ you mean?" Raye asks, in his best puzzled voice.

"Still so naïve. How old are you, Cooper?"

His present alias is _Lance Cooper_. Professional fanatic and part-time wannabe psychic.

"Twenty-eight."

"Well, my child, let me tell you something. All these big hospitals and pharmacies, they make their money from charging sick citizens a fortune to buy poisons that purportedly make them better. Now, along comes someone like me with a gift – a _divine_ gift – to heal cleanly and safely with the touch of a hand. Imagine how kindly they'll take to _that_."

"Gosh, so they're actually _suppressing _you?" Raye asks, horrified. "That's…that's…"

"That's the way of the world, my son," Holland says, shaking one finger in his direction. "But don't you worry, my time will come. I have seen it."

"I'll help! My paper, my editor, they're not associated with any big companies! I'll make sure this article gets to print without any changes. I'll help to show people how great you are, sir!"

"Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I'm so pleased Bella introduced you."

The 'Bella' who recommended him was actually Mail, who'd seamlessly hacked into the real Bella's computer. But neither Holland nor Bella would ever know that. Hopefully.

"Now, next on the agenda," Holland continues. "Please, child, stop calling me 'sir'. Such a coarse term has terrible ramifications on my chi."

Raye presses one hand over his mouth, the way Naomi does when she's exceptionally stressed.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"No need to apologise, but it's a false title. 'Sir' is for knights, schoolteachers, and customers. My proper title is 'Lord'. Or 'Father', if you will."

"I understand," Raye replies meekly. "Father. Does this mean, spiritually, that our souls are related?"

He tries to look as excited as possible about the prospect. Of course, he knows exactly what Holland is implying. He's deliberately misunderstanding.

"What I am about to tell you is of the utmost secret," Holland says mystically. "However, I am telling you today because I have seen that you will publish my secret and make it known to the world. I cannot go against my own predictions, of course."

"Of course. Do go on," Raye says, leaning forward expectantly.

Let it never be said that he isn't a good actor.

"I am…the incarnation of God."

Raye gasps appreciatively, and sits back in his seat. Holland looks immensely satisfied.

"That's…that's amazing! Impossible! How?"

_You're touched in the head, you are_.

"How else could any one man have such incredible power?" Holland asks, voice low and dramatic. "How could I see the future? Forgive the damned? Bring disaster down upon the homes of my enemies? No, I am God. It must be so. Yes."

"Incredible!" Raye says, and dips his head in a low bow as an afterthought.

Holland seems to be thrilled to have such an obliging audience.

"Yes indeed, my son," he continues eagerly. "As God, I have always walked amongst my people, reincarnated time after time. Always, I appear as a powerful man, tremendously gifted, unwaveringly benevolent. And every time, I bring joy and peace to the world, thwarting evil and vanquishing disease. But this time, _this _time, I have been insulted, disregarded and incapacitated by corporate infidels. Can you imagine how that feels, young Lance?"

Raye simply shakes his head, his face contorted into an appropriately-miserable-yet-completely-awed expression.

"These people…_my _people, I gave them _life_, and _this_ is how they repay me?"

Holland slams his jewellery-encrusted fist on the coffee table, making Raye jump.

"It's awful," he agrees wholeheartedly. "Really, truly awful."

Holland regards him keenly for a long time. He doesn't fight down the urge to squirm. It's in character, after all.

"Fear not, my son," is the eventual reply. "I have powers beyond your comprehension. I will _make_ them believe."

"Oh, but how? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You must leave it all to me," Holland says, a brave note of hope in his voice. "It is up to me to teach, and I will show the world who I am. I will prove to them that they must bow to my requests and be guided by my instruction."

_Oh fuck. Another fucking Kira. L is going to be a mess over this_.

"You'll strike them all with lightning? So they'll never forget!"

Holland laughs fondly.

"Child, no. I have…companions that will do my bidding. I have summoned something great. Something dark. Something to show them the way."

"You really _do_ have a demon?" Raye asks.

Holland smiles comfortably.

"All in good time, my son. All in good time."

* * *

Naomi arrives back at base before her husband.

"Ms Wainwright," she says, without preamble, "seems to be a previously intelligent and sensible woman who has recently become intermittently hysterical because of the media hype. I suspect the reporter twisted her words a little for the sake of the article. They're loving this ridiculous 'supernatural' vibe."

"Hiiiii, N! Can I put your hair in bows after I'm done with L?"

"Then, the sooner we can disprove that theory, the better," L says succinctly. His head hurts. He's never had eight pigtails before.

"She maintains that the creature she saw was real, and that the image was far too finely detailed to simply be a trick of the light."

"Was that particular mirror computerised, at all, or was it simply painted glass?" L enquires.

"Er, glass," Naomi replies, sounding a little confused. "Is there some significance?"

"It would be possible, I suppose, to transmit some sort of pulse that affected computerised images. But not, I believe, a simple mirror."

Naomi folds her arms.

"Hm. It's possible someone had set the whole thing up, and fitted a concealed computer screen over her regular mirror without her noticing, but there was certainly no evidence of tampering."

L touches his lower lip.

"If that is true, Holland is going to quite some effort to appear ethereal."

"I'm an ethereel! I wonder if Boney will let me put ribbons in his hair?"

"Boney?" Naomi questions, smiling slightly.

"The invisible skellington friend," L says, with dignity. "It has a name, now. I think she may have also named the invisible monster living under my bed."

"She's adorable," Naomi says affectionately, and L congratulates himself on normalising the situation. Eventually, he ought to be able to create a situation where anything Grace says will be automatically presumed to be part of a game of make-believe, no matter what.

The next step is to accidentally mention – in Grace's hearing – all of the strange words Rae could possibly teach her to try and reveal that L has a Shinigami. Starting with 'Shinigami', and then 'death note'.

Of course, right now the god of death is simply using Grace as a means to frighten L. It's sitting in the corner of the room, but whenever she approaches it and tries to grab it, it becomes immaterial.

It keeps grinning at him nastily, but he's used to that.

_You don't need to point it out to me. I know exactly what you can do, Shinigami. _

_Why don't you stop playing around and do it, then?_

"I have found the link," he informs Naomi. "The '_Gold Coast Sleep Clinic_'. It's an establishment with an ongoing program for children with recurrent nightmares, which seems to double as a remedy for children who were excessively convinced of the existence of monsters."

"I did wonder about that," Naomi says thoughtfully. "All of Steve's abductees attended it?"

"Every single one, at some point over the past five years," L says. "Most of the records state that the child in question was either particularly frightened or particularly interested in 'nonexistant creatures'."

"Great. So the link is 'monsters', essentially."

"Essentially, yes."

"Holland is targeting children who believe in monsters. L, do you have any idea just how strange this is? Why?"

L shrugs.

"Because he's a psychopath? We could never find an accurate motive for Kira's actions. Why should Steve be any different?"

"Because Steve is _not_ Light," Naomi says firmly. "I know what the Kira case did to you, L. You need to put more distance between then and now. Light is never coming back, you know."

"Are you telling _me_ to be less emotional?" L asks, incredulously.

She's right, damnit. She's right. He needs to be more detached. This case is closing in on him, crowding him up against the wall. He needs to solve it, and beat Steve, and then he'll be fine.

"Maybe a little."

"Good luck with that," Rae calls, waving a hand loftily. "He doesn't even have a heart to start with."

"I like hearts!" Grace announces.

Naomi looks at her strangely, but she doesn't say anything.

The non-sequiters and strange comments will have to happen a few times before anyone questions him.

By the grin on Rae's face, it knows that, too.

* * *

Raye returns with information. Holland is every bit as mentally unstable as he appears, hints at having some sort of monster-thing under his control, and believes he is destined to be great. He has no family of his own at present, and 'wants to protect children and other innocents from evil and heathens'.

"So, essentially," L surmises, without emotion, "he is Light."

_Light the second. Light lite. Ha ha._

"He might be just as psychotic, but he doesn't have the intellect," Raye informs him sternly. "I believe we can outsmart him."

"Did you manage to establish the location of his place of work?"

"No, but I'm sure I'll be calling him in a few days to discuss how unfair it is that my editor won't let me publish the article. He'll like that. He already thinks 'the man' is trying to keep him down."

"A typical excuse for those who practice pseudo-science, unfortunately," L says sadly.

"I expressed a particular interest in seeing his workplace, so maybe he'll give me more hints next time."

"Well done," L says. Raye is improving. Everyone is improving.

Except him.

It's late. Grace is quiet, mostly because she has a giant plastic bowl of lukewarm potato soup and is happily eating it and distributing it all over the floor. Rae is sitting next to L, watching his computer screen over his shoulder.

L cannot remember how it feels to be alone for any significant period of time. It's as if Shinigami have become a normal part of his life.

If Rae _is_ going to kill him in the end, then they'll essentially be together for the rest of L's life.

_What an unhappy thought_.

Raye leaves quickly after that, presumably to wash the gunk out of his hair. L's own hair is still various shades of purple and pink. Naomi keeps laughing every time she comes to see him. He fails to see the joke. It's just colour. And non-toxic paint. Nothing funny at all.

Tomorrow, she'll go and investigate the Gold Coast clinic. Raye will be busy maintaining his enthusiastic online contact with Holland's supporters.

And L...L is going to work this out.

* * *

A few hours creep by. Naomi comes back and brushes Grace's teeth, and orders L that she needs to be in bed within the hour. L locks the door after that. He'll be awake for the next three or four nights. He plans to feign sleep for at least two of them, in case that lulls Steve into a false sense of security.

Of course, it could be that Steve is waiting for all of the adults in the building to be in the same room, and more or less facing the same direction. He makes a mental note to test that theory, too.

_No-one has actually seen this creature, have they? _

_Don't you think that's strange?_

He wishes he had a more concrete conclusion than 'yes, that is strange'. He always feels somewhat consolidated when Rae shares his suspicions, or his unease. The Shinigami has tremendous powers of deduction, and L cannot disregard that, no matter how much it misuses its gift.

In fact, he suspects that if he pulled on a pair of shoes, Rae would immediately overtake him in intellect. Which is a fairly terrifying concept in itself.

Holland is similarly terrifying. He certainly appeared to be an idiotic, self-obsessed guru during the meeting with Raye, but even that persona is a far cry from the mad, manic one-sided dialogue he'd spouted yesterday. He's definitely concealing something, even if he _isn't_ Steve.

_This one is stronger than the others_.

What does that mean? Could it be simply that Grace believes more strongly in monsters than the other children? Why on earth would that be a desirable trait?

_What do you want, Steve?_

He realises belatedly that the space next to him is empty. Rae has moved across the room, and is reading softly to a drowsing Grace.

L doesn't trust the Shinigami as far as he can throw it. But he's becoming more and more certain that there are far, far worse things out there than Rae.

* * *

Watari gets up at dawn, just as he always does, and fills his kettle with precisely three-and-a-half cups of water. His mug has a distinct brown ring around the inside, because he always fills it to exactly the same level. He checks the feed from the monitors. Once he can accurately predict Holland's behaviour, they're going to plant another bug in his car. Or a microchip, if he seems to be excessively perceptive, so that they can track the movements of the vehicle.

L believes that Holland has another base somewhere, probably well-hidden and elaborate. If they can locate it, they may well find the kidnapped children, as well important clues as to what equipment he's using to murder the adults.

L should solve this case without too much difficulty. It's supernatural and strange, but the young detective isn't spent yet.

One day, however. One day, Watari wants to see L finish. Wants to see him complete his last case and hand the title over to someone else. Naomi, maybe, since L has been deprived of his favourite successor.

One day, he wants to see L give up.

Because one day, he wants to see L have a life. Sleep normal hours, and put on weight when he doesn't exercise. Acquire pets, forge friendships, read novels. Meet some impossibly amazing young woman and fall hopelessly.

One day, he wants L to have the things he's earned.

But not today. Today, they must catch Steve, or at least try.

L has no immediate instructions for him, so he opens up his rifle-range simulator on the computer and gets in a few hours of target practice. Then he researches new cake recipes (nothing with chocolate, never with chocolate), all the while keeping an eye on the monitors. So far, there's been no real conclusive pattern to when Holland leaves the house, or even when he checks the mailbox. He seems to keep strange hours, almost as if he's operating on a thirty or forty-hour day.

And he's careful. He's exquisitely careful. He _checks the underside of his car_ every morning. Just in case.

They're going to have to be good. L is capable. They ought to win.

Watari selects the mango-and-frangipani torte, mostly because both of the main ingredients are in abundance in this country at this time of year. He bakes it perfectly, without even paying much attention to what he's doing. Years of practice have made him an expert.

L shambles in at a quarter past four, with the same forlorn expression he's been wearing all week. Watari is reminded of the way he looked the day Light killed him, ragged and broken.

"Is something wrong, L?" he asks, hiding his concern behind a thick veil of politeness.

"I am fine," L lies, rocking back and forth on the balls of his bare feet.

He doesn't even glance in the direction of Watari's kitchen, which in itself is a testimony to how distracted he has become.

There is nothing else to be said. Watari turns back to his computer screen and waits for his young employer to request something. L eventually pads across the polished floor and crouches down next to his chair.

"There are certain types of people," he says quietly, "that should never exist."

He doesn't usually pass judgement like this unless he's exhausted.

Exhausted, but not spent, perhaps.

_Is it time yet, L_?

Watari doesn't reach out to him. Even as a child, L almost never responded to physical contact. In fact, if anything, he's become _more_ receptive with age. Trust L to do everything backwards.

"Perhaps there are other types of people placed in the world to balance them out," he suggests.

L presses his whole fist to his lips, staring into the middle distance with a tremendous sort of intensity.

_Dying isn't the only way out, L. In fact, it isn't a way out at all. It needs to be a conscious decision. No one else can throw on the brakes for you._

_Is this about Mihael?_

"Perhaps they can't," L says finally, reaching out as if he means to snag some invisible thing from mid-air. He sounds a little annoyed. Which means he must be incredibly upset, for it's rare that any emotion leaks into L's voice at all.

Silence descends once more, punctuated only by the gentle _click_ of Watari's keyboard. Someone else shuffles into the room, and crouches down next to L.

"Good afternoon," L says wearily. "I thought you were playing with N."

"I missed you," Grace says, with child-like honesty. "Can we play?"

"No."

"Okay."

Her presence might even be good for him. Make him think about one of his own. Force him to behave like a normal human being, if only for a little while.

"I like sitting like you do, but it hurts my legs."

"Please be quiet."

"Okay," Grace whispers.

She presses her thumb inexpertly to her lips. Watari hides a smile.

"Can I have some cake?"

"Grace. Please."

The little girl gets to her feet, determined.

"Why do you look so sad?" she demands, pointing one stubby finger at L's face. "You're making _me_ sad!"

L regards her for a long moment, then drops his head and stares at the floor.

"I'm sorry," he says, so very softly. "I'm sorry."

Grace frowns and approaches him, forcing her way closer until she's pressed up against his thin chest. She wraps her arms around his neck, and for a moment, L stops breathing.

"It's okay," Grace says, as if she actually knows what is going on. "It's okay, L."

L hugs her back. He holds on for a long time. Watari thinks he might have learned something, after all.

* * *

L gathers everyone together, in the office, and has all of his employees turn their backs to the same wall. For half an hour they work that way, in silence. Grace takes a nap in one of the armchairs.

_Come on, Steve. How can you resist an opportunity like this?_

Of course, even for a gunman with spectacular reflexes, it would only be possible to shoot a maximum of two people dead without allowing time for reaction. A third person would almost inevitably get enough warning to at least turn around.

_And for some reason, you don't want that, do you?_

And yet, Steve never comes when it's just him alone upstairs. Does that mean that Steve is waiting until there's a maximum of two adults in the _building_? Then all children in the country would be safe as long as they were staying in hotels and apartment blocks.

In the end, L even has Mail switch off all of the cameras in the room.

And still, nothing happens.

* * *

"Boney, will you play hide an' seek with me?" Grace whines.

Naomi is still up the coast investigating the clinic, and Raye is orchestrating a phone meeting with Holland. Which means that once again, L is stuck trying to research in his room, surrounded by small child and vengeful god.

"Only if you say it," Rae says in a singsong voice.

"Aww, I don't wanna," Grace sulks, and then seems to be struck with further inspiration. "Hey, you wanna eat my vegetables for me? They're really tasty!"

"I'll have the potato, I guess."

"And the asparagus?"

"No. Why don't you see if L wants the asparagus?" Rae suggests nastily.

L glares at both of them stonily, his fingers still moving expertly over his laptop keyboard.

_Some people have better things to do than play petty little mind games, Shinigami_.

It's the first time he's ever seen Rae eat, and although one would generally expect that a god would defy the laws of physics and biology, it's still strange to see the potato disappearing into its mouth and not re-appearing inside its empty rib cage. Instead, the starchy vegetable simply vanishes.

_Like those children_.

"Rae?"

"Oh, you're talking to me now?"

"For a moment," L says, a little haughtily. "Do you have any idea what this thing might be? Could you list for me all of the other supernatural creatures that exist?"

It's not a monster, and it's not a demon. He knows that. But still, it pays to be absolutely thorough in his research. And it's possible that if Holland truly is Steve, he's designing the murders to emulate the actions of some mythical monster so he can frighten people.

"Sorry, can't help you," Rae says flippantly, and turns away from him. "Come on Grace, one more time. 'L is evil'. It's easy!"

"But I like L. He's nice!"

"He's pretending to be nice, like the bad lady in the story we read this morning. Remember?"

"Uh uh," Grace scolds. "L is my friend."

Rae sighs.

"Ah well, I guess you'll just have to play hide and seek with someone else then, won't you?"

L grits his teeth and keeps working. Focusing on the Shinigami is only going to make him angry, and anger decreases his deductive powers by around seven percent.

They're going to have to take a risk if they want to tamper with Holland's car again, but L _needs_ to know where the man is going. He's having Watari design a very, very small and specially-camouflaged microchip for that very purpose, and somehow, they must apply it to the vehicle without being seen.

Naturally, they're going to make an attempt during Raye's phone meeting. Based on Watari's photographs, the home phone isn't cordless, and it's stationed in the middle of the house. Holland will have to put the phone down if he wants to check on the car, even visually, so they ought to have some warning.

It's not a perfect plan, but it's the best L can engineer with so few resources.

So few resources. Just like the Kira case. Clutching at straws, and eventually clutching at nothing.

And then, finally, the bells.

"But no one else will play with me! Please, Boney, I'm so bored!"

"Come on then, say it."

"Nuh uh!"

"Say 'evil'."

"Eeeee-vil."

"Good girl! You're so clever, aren't you?"

"I…I guess."

"Did L help you eat your asparagus?"

"N…no."

The scariest thing is, Kira wasn't the only person to prove himself smarter than L. He wasn't even the first person.

_She's dead, she's gone, she's in hell. She's not coming back, either_.

Generator to skin. The electric chair doesn't miss.

And he'd done the right thing. Hadn't he?

Had he?

Is there any justification at all for those who act solely out of anger?

Not enough emotion and he'll be Light. Too much emotion, and he'll be the same person he was back then. The one who was worse – a thousand times worse – than the criminal they had stopped.

It's such a fine line, and he's losing his balance. Over Holland. Over Mail. Over Boney. Over all of it.

He thinks maybe there isn't enough sugar in the whole world to get him through this case.

"Okay, fine! If I say it, can we play?"

"Yes."

"L is evil. There! Now are you happy?"

"Yes."

* * *

"Lance Cooper. You're seven minutes late, my child."

"I'm so sorry, my Lord."

A phone meeting is much easier than meeting in person. Raye is free to roll his eyes whenever he needs to, for a start. But he still needs to sound the part, and Lance is a fairly difficult character to play. He forces himself to focus.

"No need to apologise. I knew you'd call at this time, of course," Holland replies breezily.

"It's…it's not just that," Raye continues, sounding as pitiful as he can manage. "I need to apologise for something else. My editor –"

"Won't run the story?"

"How did you know?" he squeaks. Naomi grins broadly and flashes him a thumbs-up from the doorway. He taps his own forehead and points at the phone in response.

"Even without my sixth sense, I'd know that," Holland says distastefully. "Newspapers are all the same, my child. They bow to the big businesses and corporations. Their advertisers won't let them print the truth about someone as talented as myself."

"That's bullshit!" Raye says vehemently. "Er, I mean, I'm sorry. It's just…"

"It's unpleasant, my child, I know."

"In any case, I'm sure you already know that the problem with the Northwest Times is slightly different," he adds reverently.

There's a pause during which he can almost _hear_ Holland's mind changing gear.

"Of course, the reverberations I'm sensing from this particular rejection _are_ a little different to the ones before. What's happened, my son?"

"My editor believes that publishing the article as it stands will sound like too much of an advertisement for you," Raye says, sounding convincingly ashamed. "She refuses to publish a story solely on how great someone is, no matter how truthful."

"Oh?" Holland says, tone turning predatory. "What more does she want, then?"

"She says the subject material is fascinating, it's just that she wants _more_. She agrees psychics are an undervalued part of modern society, but she wants something that really shows people what they're like, to try and raise awareness."

"What a divinely open-minded soul she must be. What more can I do to help the publication of this article?"

Raye breathes deeply.

_Okay, here goes_.

"She wants to do, like, a day in the life of a professional psychic. She wants me to follow you for twenty-four hours. What you eat, what you do at work, witness you healing people, that sort of thing."

"Oh-"

"I know, I know," Raye ploughs on, miserably. "It would be a gross invasion of your privacy, my Lord. I already told her it probably wouldn't be possible!"

There is another long silence on the other end of the line. Raye crosses his fingers in his lap. As much as he despises the thought of spending more time with this asswipe, they _need_ to find those kids. All of them, and still alive.

"I'm afraid I…not yet," Holland replies, finally. "It's true that you have a glowing reference from Bellalover, but The Man has his spies everywhere. I need to know that I can trust you, first."

"I understand," Raye says, disappointed. "What can I do to earn your trust?"

"Being a journalist means you would have police contacts, am I correct?"

Raye narrows his eyes.

_What are you after, you bastard?_

"Nothing overly influential, I'm afraid," he replies carefully.

"I see. You have to understand that as the Lord God, I am more troubled than anyone else during dark times such as these."

"Dark times?"

"This Steve character," Holland explains. "Those poor little children. I can't even bear to think of it. I'm getting such terrible vibes from the whole incident, and there's nothing I can do."

"I hadn't even thought of that," Raye burbles. "Couldn't _you_ help the police? You must know where those children are being kept!"

"I cannot work with nothing, my son," Holland explains. "The confines of my human form forbid it. If the police weren't so coy with their leads, I could undoubtedly help them select the correct perpetrator with just a little evidence. But that coward Steve is so secretive that I have nothing at all the work on. And the police, bringing in foreign detectives, when all they really need is to be a little less closed-minded. It's a crying shame, my son."

_Wow. You're a lot cleverer than I estimated_.

"Oh god, of course," Raye says. "Look, no promises, but I dated a police officer for a little while. I'll see if she can find me anything."

"Thank you, my son. For now, I must put my own needs aside. There are more pressing things to be done."

"Of course, my Lord. If you could solve this, you'd be instantly famous and respected! I'll definitely try as hard as I can."

"I hadn't even thought of that," Holland lies. "All I want is to protect those tortured young ones, and restore the reputations of all respectable and honest psychics. Honestly, that bastard pretending to use supernatural means. He just makes me sick."

"Absolutely, I agree," Raye says. "When should I call you next?"

"In twenty-four hours," Holland suggests. "Only next time, you will be two minutes early."

* * *

"He knows who you are," L says immediately, when Raye reports to him. "He knows you work for either myself or the police, and he's trying to prove his innocence. We moved too quickly."

"You miscalculated?" Raye demands angrily.

"I did not," L corrects, taking a sip of his tea. Next to him, Grace drinks from her cup of water. She's been aping him for the past three hours. He dreads to think what will happen when she decides to start mimicking Rae. "This is exactly the outcome I was hoping for. We've forced his hand. Only a guilty man who thinks he is suspected would try so hard to prove his innocence. He will also suspect any evidence you give him, and will investigate it carefully. We can use this."

"Whatever," Rae sighs. "This war of the geniuses is beyond me."

"He believed you initially, I think," L says. "You were quite convincing. But now he does not."

"So we have no way in with him?"

"Ah," L says. "Right now, we still control Bellalover. The real Bellalover – a Miss Amanda Clarke – has mysteriously had her internet connection cancelled, which will take a few days for her service provider to sort out."

"At which point she'll know she's been hacked, and tell Holland."

"I intend to have caught Holland before that time," L says. "But we can extend her incapacitation, if need be."

Raye curls one hand into a fist.

"I wish you'd consult with the rest of us before taking risks like this, you know."

"I thought I was your employer," L says diffidently.

_And once again, you doubt me, Raye._

They all doubt him. He knows they do. Naomi doubts him subtly. Raye is obvious with his frustrations and fears. Watari is quiet and respectful in his uncertainty. Mail thinks he might fail but really doesn't give a damn

If he defeats this Light-like murderer, then perhaps they will be more convinced. He glances at the clock.

_Only a matter of time_.

Will Steve strike again, while Grace is still safe? Or will he go after her first? After all, she is 'the strongest'.

"Of course," Raye says tersely.

"Watari has successfully placed the microchip, which was our primary objective," L continues. "Your conversation with Holland today has not been wasted. We can trace the car."

Which is important, because Holland has strangely started to park out of view of their camera. The man is either overly suspicious or inconceivably perceptive. Either way, L is going to have to be excruciatingly careful.

"I see. That's good, then."

L stares up at him. Beside him, Grace is messing up her hair, presumably in an effort to make it more like his.

"Go on," Rae says quietly. "Say it. Tell R what you said to me yesterday, about L."

"No," Grace says stubbornly.

Raye frowns at her.

"No what? Hey, are you okay? L, is she having nightmares? She keeps staring off into space."

L touches her head.

"We'll take her to a doctor as soon as this is over," he promises. "You'll be all right, won't you, Grace?"

"Tell him," Raye urges. "Tell him."

"You're _not_ evil, L," Grace wails, and buries her face in his shirt.

"Where the fuck did that come from?" Raye wonders.

"No more scary bedtime stories for you," L informs her.

"There's no way he'll buy that," Rae jeers.

Raye frowns at the scene, clearly trying to decipher what Grace is thinking, and what possibly could have happened to bring her to that particular sentence.

The man is no idiot.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," he says finally. "You really shouldn't use words like 'evil' around her, L. She's frightened, she's all alone, and she's bound to get some weird ideas if she has too much knowledge of what you do for a living. Remember that she can't always stay with you. She needs to trust other people, as well."

"Oh, come on," Rae says. "Who are you, Matsuda? She's clearly talking to someone other than L!"

_He thinks I've been telling her that other people are evil_, L realises. He glances at his Shinigami. _Well, perhaps I have been, a little. But there are things she ought to know_.

"Yes, I am aware of that," he says softly, stroking Grace's hair awkwardly. "I am trying to look after her, you know."

"I know," Raye says. "You're doing a pretty good job, all things considered."

L smiles a little.

"You ought to go and get some rest," he says. "You're emotionally exhausted, and I want everyone in absolutely perfect health for this case."

"Right," Raye agrees. "Thanks. You too."

"Thank you," L replies.

There are two more articles on Steve in two different regional newspapers, and a short segment on one of the commercial television channels. All of them liberally abuse the phrase 'ungodly demon', and two of them imply that the police and private detectives are 'completely baffled' and 'desperate for leads'.

L sighs. He's only been operating in the second world for eight years, so naturally he hasn't yet achieved the same sort of fame and respect that he had before he died. Still, it would be nice if the media could be a _little_ more cooperative.

They just don't have enough information yet. He's frustrated. This case should not be so difficult.

_Haven't I thought that before?_

Naomi's visit to the sleep clinic proved to be almost completely useless, although one of the nurses confirmed that the senior paediatric doctor had once described Grace as 'having the greatest belief in monsters he'd ever seen in a child her age'.

So what does that mean? She's got the strongest belief in monsters, but she isn't _frightened _of them. So how is that beneficial? Someone like Holland ought to have targeted children he could scare, not ones that would take it all in their stride.

The shooting in the back, the fear of monsters, the blur on the screen, Holland's obscure remarks. It's starting to feel like there's some huge entity that he's missing.

Like a death note, only different.

_But that makes no sense. Why would something supernatural suddenly begin committing crimes?_

_And…Holland was arguing with something in the car. Either that was for show, or he honestly thinks he has a demon. In which case, we may not be able to find evidence to the contrary solely by analysing his behaviour._

_Or he honestly does have a demon. But if it's so reluctant, why is it doing his bidding?_

Holland said something about being all alone. Is this some sort of lonely Shinigami? Something akin to Rem, who falls too easily, or who is just looking for company, at any cost? Or is it something like Misa, looking for a justice it cannot comprehend?

Or is it simply evil, and the first of its kind?

Or have there been many evil and supernatural things, and this one is simply not as clever as the others, and therefore does not commit crimes seamlessly.

Which is a deeply disturbing thought, because that means that they've essentially been framing innocent people. And he's fallen for it.

"Your team really sucks, L," Rae says darkly, and pokes Grace. "Come on, let's go and play a game."

"I miss my daddy," Grace sniffles, and buries closer to L. "I don't want to play with you no more, Boney."

"It's all right," L says. "You can stay with me for a little while."

Sometimes he thinks she's incredibly insightful, for a five-year-old. And then he remembers what he was like at five. And, six.

Six and second-best in the class.

But god, the things he'd seen.

Raye is right. He needs to protect Grace from as much as he can. Because she can't ever go back to her parents, and she can't ever go back home, and she's effectively all alone.

And she's doing so, so well.

* * *

Sadly, Grace does not continue to do well. She clings to L for another half an hour, refuses to eat any dinner, and starts screaming when Naomi takes her for her usual nightly bath. She then proceeds to spend the next three hours howling relentlessly, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and staining her yellow pyjamas.

"I waaaaaant m-my muuuuummyyyeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!"

L presses his hands to his ears. She's not hurt. According to Naomi, tantrums are a normal coping mechanism of young children who've recently been through difficult times.

Perfectly normal.

"AAAaaaaaaAAAAAAaahhhhhhh! W-wanna go home n-now!"

His head might explode.

She has to stop sometime, right?

He needs to _think_. He's just eaten his own weight in gobstoppers, and he's still functioning at barely half his normal capacity. He's trying to research mythical creatures – of all things – in an attempt to work out what exactly it is that Holland is pretending to command. So far nothing seems to have a penchant for small children, and he's so exhausted he wants to drop off his chair.

"Grace, please," he says, to no avail. It's like she can't even hear him. She's just rolling around on the floor, sobbing like her life depends on it.

He'll only hold out another twenty-four hours. He'll need to sleep again tomorrow. Another chance. Another opportunity.

_When will you make your attempt, Steve_?

"Useless," Rae says bitingly.

Sometimes, L worries about the things it says more than he ought to. It takes a significant amount of strength to withstand constant insults and put-downs and remain completely unaffected.

L tries to think of Rae as a lesson in self-control. Sometimes the death note strapped to his bare chest feels like it weighs half a tonne.

"I DON'T WANT TO…D-DON'T…d—d-ooooooooooooooooon't…"

"Hey," Rae says, touching her shoulder. "Come on. That's enough."

"GO AWAY!"

Rae folds its arms, equally petulant.

"I'm not going away."

"GO AWAY!"

"No."

"Go awaaaaay, Boney!" Grace sniffles.

"I'm staying right here," Rae says firmly.

Grace stares up at the towering skeleton with liquid eyes.

"I'm scared," she admits, finally.

The Shinigami bends over and picks her up. L watches silently as the little girl drops her head against its pointy clavicle. There's no way she can be comfortable, cradled against a pile of bones and fire, but she seems strangely mollified, all the same.

L turns back to his research. Certain myths state that Harpies – strange bird-woman creatures – have a preference for children, but aside from that, all the literature only supports modern-day monsters as being child-oriented.

_This is ridiculous, Holland_, he thinks irritably. _We are running around in circles trying to understand your twisted mind._

Just another Kira, really.

When he looks up again, over an hour later, Rae is standing near him, rocking slightly, with Grace asleep in its arms. Its eyes are rust-coloured, and L thinks it must be just as fatigued as he is.

For all he dislikes the Shinigami, it's never shown any intention to harm small children. Rae probably makes Grace a little bit safer, even. L can only hope it will defend her when the time comes.

Because that time _will_ come. That much, he knows for sure.

* * *

The marriage between the king and queen isn't really a romantic affair. It's more like a business arrangement. The position of king changes every few millennia or so, but as far as he knows, there has only ever been one queen. The same queen.

She is either completely mad, or abhorrently sadistic.

Or human.

Usually she lives in her dinky little cottage up high in the mountains, and he rules his Shinigami, and that's that. He hates it when she comes down here. He hates dealing with her. Sometimes he hates the fact that she exists.

"What's wrong, Jas?" he asks eventually, when it becomes clear she's not just going to go away. All of his loyal subjects have found other places to be, the scumbags. No one likes being near her. She doesn't have any friends at all, not since she got rid of her pet, Remira.

"Sometimes I think I spend too much time around humans," she says quietly. Her voice sounds like raindrops falling softly onto fresh spring flowers. It makes him want to punch her in the face.

"I could have told you that," he says, with an arrogant shrug. He doesn't go to her, preferring to remain firmly seated on his throne.

_She_ doesn't have a throne. Or a crown. Or jewellery.

All she has, really, is the ability to bend time and space, and trap people inside false realities.

Clearly he's the more powerful of the two of them.

"How's your new blonde pet going?" he drawls. "You going to make him into a Shinigami too? You know how much I hate you using my realm for your games."

"They're not games," she says, without even the merest hint of anger. Disappointing.

Of course, he knows they're not games. What she does is of immense importance to the human worlds. She keeps the human realms from becoming as rotten as their own.

She won't use her power to help her own damn _people_, but she'll use it to make the human world a better place.

He hates her for that.

"I want to let him go," she murmurs. "As soon as possible. But I can't. He has to make the right decision at the right time."

_I don't understand you at all_.

"And your other little project?" he prompts.

She glares at him sideways, the tips of her ridiculous feathered wings flopping almost to the ground.

"I wish I could just throw away the key," she admits. "I've can't remember ever wanting to hang on to someone so much."

The king shrugs.

"It's not bothering me, my dear. In fact, you've been providing me with a great source of amusement. Sometimes I even stop playing craps, just to watch."

"I'm glad you find my charges so droll," she says sardonically.

The king drums his fingers against the side of his throne. The fabric is rotting off one of the arms, and he's certain there's a nest of termites living somewhere inside.

"You don't like it either," she insists. "I know you don't."

"I don't go bellyaching about it," he snarls. "Look, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you really are trying to protect those sweet pathetic little humans from darkness and evil, then there are certain people who shouldn't even have a chance at redemption. Simple."

"I can't do that, either," she replies softly. "I'm not perfect. There must be a failsafe. Even if I'm sure, that's not enough."

"Well then, it's your own fault if the piranha gets out of your net," the king quips lightly. "And after you've gone to so much effort, too. Why the concern now, anyways? You're still cut up about Wakefield, aren't you? You're still not sure whether one of your toys might have pulled one over on you."

"There's not a human who ever existed who could possibly be smarter than me," she snaps, finally angry. "That's why I do what I do."

"Good. Then go and do it, and leave me alone."

"Fine," she says, and bows her head. "All…all the same, I am worried."

* * *

Grace comes rushing into L's office-slash-bedroom at five o'clock. She has grass in her hair from her morning trip to the park, and sugary cereal stuck to her face from her lunch. Apparently, L's eating habits are contagious.

Naomi will be _so_ impressed.

She also has tears on her cheeks, which is never a good sign. L sets aside his research. It's not as if he was really making any sort of progress. Right now, winning seems to be largely a matter of waiting for Steve to make a move, and then responding.

By his estimations, Steve is impatient. They shouldn't have to wait too long.

"What is it, Grace?" he asks, as kindly as he possibly can. She's spent most of the day firmly attached to Boney, who apparently became her new hero after comforting her last night.

Children are so easily won.

He wonders if that's what Steve is after.

_Even Light never targeted children. Doesn't that make you worse than Kira?_

"B-B-Boney was m-mean to me."

_How unsurprising_.

He holds out one arm in her direction, because that's what she seems to want. She immediately curls up at his side. Sometimes she reminds L of a pouch-dwelling animal, tiny and heat-seeking. He rests his forearm loosely over her shoulders.

"What did he do? Did he say I was a bad person?"

"You're _not_ bad," Grace says, and L feels somewhat justified by the fierceness in her tone.

At least someone has faith in him.

"What was it, then?"

Grace draws back just enough so she can look up at L's face.

"He said my name was blurry. He was really angry."

_What_?

"Were you practicing your writing?"

"No! We were playing with blocks and he asked me why my name was blurry and he sounded really angry so I cried and ran in here!"

L frowns.

"I don't understand. What were you looking at?"

"There you are," Rae says, bursting through the wall. "Should have known you'd come back to hang out with this tool."

The god of death looks deeply unnerved. Grace howls and tries to become one with L's ribcage.

"What happened?" he demands. He wants a straight, logical answer from _someone_.

Rae shakes its head.

"I…I don't even know what it is," it tells L, sounding improbably young. "I don't…I've never seen anything like this. Her name is going fuzzy."

"Fuzzy?"

Rae rolls its horrible eyes.

"Look, you know all about death god vision, right? For example, I can see the thumping great '_L Lawliet'_ over your head. And for ordinary people who don't own death notes, I can see their name _and_ the rest of their natural life-span."

"Don't say my name in front of her," L hisses. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"Her name and life-span are out of focus," Rae says, sounding both bemused and frightened.

"Because she touched the note?"

"The note wouldn't do that. _Nothing_ does that. That's what I'm saying, this doesn't make sense. It's as if Holland's tampered with her, somehow."

"Or that's what drew him to her in the first place," L says. "Did any of the other children have blurred names?"

"I don't know," Rae snaps. "I didn't see them, did I? But Grace's was definitely normal when I first saw her. In fact, I know it was normal yesterday. At first I thought I was just exhausted, but it's not that either."

"How do you know it's not you?" L argues. "There's no reason for anything to change in Grace. Maybe you're just aging, or going mad. Maybe this is a test from the king."

Rae regards Grace for a moment.

"I can't read her life-span at all any more," it says urgently. "Something's happened."

"But you know how long it is anyway, right?" L asks. "Are you not just as tired as you were first thing this morning? Why don't you sleep, and see if it improves."

"Death gods don't need sleep. We recharge automatically. I'm telling you, he's _done_ something to her-"

"Holland does _not_ have supernatural powers!" L barks.

Grace starts to wail against his chest.

"Am I going to die, L?"

"No!"

"Then why has this happened?" Rae demands of him.

"I don't know," L says, touching his thumb to his lips. How on earth is he supposed to know how a Shinigami works, if even the Shinigami itself does not know?

Where is Rem when they need her?

"Do you care for Grace?" L asks suddenly, a thought striking him.

Rae looks distinctly uncomfortable, like it's been caught doing something wrong. A second later it's back to its usual smug self, grinning unpleasantly.

L blinks.

_I actually saw the mask come down that time. You must be off your game, Rae_.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"I don't care about anybody especially," Rae informs him nastily.

"If you dislike people especially – namely myself – then you are also capable of favouring. Shinigami are impaired when they have feelings for humans, yes?"

Although Rem never seemed to lose any of her Shinigami abilities. Does that mean that this is another test, specifically for the future king?

"I don't care for her."

"Do Shinigami have children?"

Children are all much the same, after all. If Rae is very old, _and_ it's been stuck with only him for the past three and a half years, maybe it is craving company.

"I'm not sacrificing my cause for some snot-nosed toddler," the death god says darkly.

L stares at it.

"Sacrificing your cause? Does that mean the king isn't allowed to ever favour a human?"

"Not if you are suggesting I'd die for her," Rae informs him haughtily. "If the king – or anyone in line for the throne – dies for a human, that weakness is unforgivable. Punishable only by obliteration. Dead. Gone. From all worlds and all realms. Forever."

_How unusually harsh_, L thinks, with interest. _I suppose that is to keep the king strong and impartial._

_How many tests have been set for you, Rae?_

Note and log.

"I see. But liking her a little is okay?"

"That's irrelevant. I don't like her, and the problem doesn't lie with me," Rae says with finality, crossing its arms. "Everyone else's names and dates are perfectly clear. I just went to check."

"Fine," L says heavily, now bobbing back and forth in an effort to calm Grace's hysterics. "What should we do, then?"

"Investigate Holland!"

"How am I supposed to about investigating a supposed ability that I can't even detect?" L enquires. "Be reasonable. It would be more useful for you to go to the king and find out what could possibly have caused this condition, if you don't know yourself."

Rae nods, fidgeting a little.

_This is such strange behaviour for you. Either you suspect that it is your own eyes failing, or you care about Grace at least somewhat and are concerned for her future_.

_Either way, I am not entirely wrong_.

"Fine. You keep watch over her until I get back, do you hear me? I don't want anything happening while I'm gone."

"You want to see how this plays out?" L asks. "Yes, I can imagine that would be important. The room will be under surveillance tonight. She'll be perfectly fine."

"Bet your life?"

"I always bet my life," L says, with dignity.

* * *

"I miss Boneyyy."

"Do you have to complain all the time?" L admonishes. Dealing with Grace all by himself is incapacitating. She's practically glued herself to his side, and refuses to consort with anyone else. She's been antsy since Rae left, and it's almost nine o'clock.

"I'm hungry, L."

"You ought to have eaten your dinner, then."

"I wasn't hungry then!"

"It was only ten minutes ago."

There is silence while Grace considers her next move. L wishes he hadn't developed such a clear insight in the workings of her mind.

"I want a story, L!"

L groans, and pushes his computer away. He can't sleep until she is safely locked into her bed. Which means that he needs to wear her out before he collapses unconscious on the floor.

"Are you not even a little tired? Naomi said you would be tired by now."

"Story story story!" she repeats, slapping her knees in time to her chant.

L props his chin up in his hands.

"I'll make you a hot chocolate, too," he says, finally. "And a story. Then bed, okay?"

Grace looks like she's just won the lotto.

"Okay!" she says enthusiastically. "With marshmallows!"

"Of course."

Grace finally nods off around midnight, with her book on her chest and her head resting heavily on L's left foot.

He tucks her in and double-checks the taps. Rae still isn't back, which is convenient, because as far as L knows it's still trying to make Grace tell the world that L is evil.

Of course, the Shinigami has only been trying half-heartedly, and it's no more likely to do anything on camera than it is when someone else is in the room. He ought to be safe.

Anyway, Rae is evidently only angling to expose him as supposedly evil. It's not _actually_ trying to make him use the note. He suspects it doesn't realise how damaged he'd be if he were isolated from his team. He's become so dependent, so ingrained in the need for company. Obviously he's still doing a fairly successful job of hiding that particular weakness.

So far.

"Everything is in order," Mail informs him over the intercom. "No blind spots."

"Thank you," L says. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, yeah," Mail replies indifferently. "You know, I can't actually remember what he looked like any more."

L closes his eyes. He had intended for his last question to mean '_are you prepared to monitor this room intensively for the next six-and-a-half hours'. _Obviously Mail had read into it on a slightly more personal level.

"I'm sorry," he offers.

_I will get him back. Somehow. I can't tell you, but I will. _

_Just…just hang on. Do what you're doing. I'll pull you both through this. I'll put you back together again._

If Rae alienates him from his team, if this case breaks his spirit as a detective, then he'll just devote his entire life and resources towards saving Mello. The first step would be finding Rem again, he imagines.

"Eh, it's not your problem," Mail replies. "I just hate everything."

"Regardless of that, please watch us closely tonight," L informs him.

_My back-up plan isn't here, and I must sleep_.

"Got it," Mail says, and the intercom crackles and flickers off.

L pulls on his bullet-proof vest again. Just to be certain.

* * *

Bernard Holland knows two things.

One, they've got nothing. Absolutely nothing to convict him, and no idea how he's doing it.

And two, they know his vehicle. And where he lives. It's laughable, the fact that they actually placed a microchip on his car. As if he wouldn't check under the rim around the tyres. And there was no camera built in, either, so he just glued it to the same spot on the road. They won't know he's moved. Not since he started parking just outside of range of that camera fixed across the street.

Oh, and if they think he fell for that ridiculous reporter act, well, they're more stupid than he gave them credit for. He's already chastised Bella twice for trusting them, but she insists Lance Cooper is clean.

Stupid girl.

He really just wants to be rid of them all. Filthy, stinking, corporation-fuelled filth, cluttering up his planet and ignorantly standing between him and the respect he deserves.

He'd like to smite them all, one-two-three, dead right where they stand. On television, preferably. The greatest detective in the world.

But not yet. He's only got one. He needs more. There must be more. Once the world realises what he can do, there will be lynch mobs after him. Police squadrons. Maybe entire armies. All singling him out just because he wants to reclaim his world. Infidels.

And he needs to be able to cut them all down, one fell swoop, so that there can be no argument. So that the world finally realises, and accepts, that he is the one true god. And then there will be peace, and harmony, and safety for all the good citizens and their little children.

His world will be perfect. So perfect.

There will be nothing to link him to what is about to happen.

There is a third thing that he knows, which might surprise Mr L. He knows exactly where they are. Oh yes. He couldn't have located them or hacked their systems alone, but he doesn't need to, not as long as he has his pendant.

Holland touches the worm's head dangling from his neck. He recently had it encased in glass, because it was getting old and rotten. It's his gift. He can do anything, as long as he has this.

And right now, he needs an army. His holy army. Soldiers who will become his angels when peace has finally reigned, all perfectly under his control. Hundreds, maybe thousands of worm-heads, one from each of them. That's all he needs.

So. It is waiting for his instruction. All that needs to be done is getting rid of that infernal detective sleeping soundly in his room. With so much surveillance, how very clever. And that sweet little girl, right there beside him.

All he needs. She's strong enough to make it happen. She must be. If she isn't, he'll have to go after the Smythes.

But she should be. She ought to be. Doctor's reports don't lie.

The thing about surveillance is that usually the very rich make presumptions, because they are used to having everything handed to them on a plate.

The power pole is a few buildings away from L's hotel. There are no cameras or witnesses. Surveillance needs electricity. He doesn't need this car.

Two birds with one stone.

He presses his foot to the pedal and braces himself for the impact.

* * *

L wakes up with a jolt because everything is wrong. It's too dark, he'd just heard gunshot so loud it must be right outside his room, and he's suddenly in tremendous pain, and –

Grace.

He spins in his bed. Something has happened. This is…this isn't nothing. He's been shot. He's been _shot in the back_.

Her bed is still locked, but she isn't in it. She's nowhere to be seen, but he can hear her crying _L, L, L_, her little voice muffled because there's _someone in his room_. He's up, he's on his feet. The intruder is wearing a grey cloak and hood, and it has its back to him. There's a child-sized bulge to one side of what is probably its legs.

It's _got_ her.

L grabs his own gun from its position right under his bed.

"Don't you dare move," he says.

_Where are the others? Where's the goddamned backup?_

His gaze is briefly drawn to the ceiling. The lights are all off. The cameras are dead.

There's no fucking power. Backup isn't coming.

It doesn't matter. Mail will come in a moment anyway, because things have gone wrong. L scans the room. There is no way out except the door. The intruder isn't going anywhere.

"It's all right, Grace," he says, but she doesn't reply. L looks at where she was standing not two seconds ago.

The room is empty.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ ugh, I'm going to apologise (again) for how long and complicated this arc is. I don't know if I made it obvious, but I kept throwing in other POVs just to detract from L and his epic angst. I promise this particular case should be wrapped up in the next chapter or two. thanks for sticking with me through this.

+ thank you for your reviews, they make my life. I wish I ffn would let me draw you all some hearts, but alas, it will not.


	20. Desperation

notes/warnings:

+ swearing like you wouldn't believe.

+ RAE SPELLED BACKWARDS IS 'EAR'!

* * *

**Desperation**

"Fuck," Raye says, slamming his hand against the wall. "Fuck fuck FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

"You aren't helping the situation," Naomi says wearily. L is still crouched at the edge of his bed, head in his hands. He's barely said a word.

"I'm going to go and check the perimeter again," her husband declares, and stomps out of the room. They've checked the perimeter five times, and the surrounding area twice. Mail is going through local security cameras as they speak. So far, they've found nothing. No evidence to even suggest someone was here.

"L, you know it isn't possible that anyone came to this room while you were awake, right?" she asks cautiously. "They must have taken Grace at the exact second that they shot you."

L curls one hand into a fist. He has fairly big hands, yet he always seems so small. Naomi worries about him a lot.

"I saw something," he says firmly. "My eyes do not deceive me."

"If that's true, then they must have gotten out through a hole in the ceiling, or something," Naomi replies. "It's not possible that they just disappeared."

"I know that," L says sharply. "What bothers me is that they _appeared _to."

"I can assure you both that there are no weaknesses, man-holes, or trap doors in this room or any other room of the building," Watari says gently. "L, you did all you could."

"If that's true," L says, raising his head, "then Holland has won. If the best I can do is not good enough, then we will be no contest. We had every advantage here."

"Well, evidence suggests he's not killing the children right away," Naomi tells him. "If we start work now, we should-"

"We need to be out there," L interrupts her. "Right now. Every car we've got, on the streets, looking for Holland. For Grace. For their base. Anything. I will not sit here another moment."

Naomi rocks back on her heels and bites her lip.

"L, you don't need me to point out to you that that is not the best possible use of resources. You were close to Grace, but we need to treat this as-"

"_Now, Naomi!"_

Naomi regards her boss. She's never seen him like this before. Angry and frightened and harassed and determined.

"Yes, boss," she says meekly. "Right away."

* * *

They cover the entire city in a few hours. Holland's car is crashed into the power pole that supplied their hotel. The satellite tracking on the microchip shows the car as still being parked outside his home.

Which means one thing. He found the chip. Clever fucking bastard.

"L?" Naomi's worried voice filters over the intercom. "Everyone else is back at base. You coming?"

"Soon," he says. He can't go back, going back is pointless. Driving is pointless. Holland is so competent that L isn't sure he can win any more. He timed everything perfectly, Grace's abduction happened in the few seconds between the electricity going down and the generator kicking in.

According to his estimations, there are at least two thousand and eighty-four places where someone could hide several small children. He could narrow that list down significantly if he knew what exactly it is Holland is trying to _do_.

He should stop and go back. They need to rendezvous with the police and start going through that list.

One more street. Maybe two. The others might have missed something.

His car is a modified disability vehicle, intended for paraplegics. It's perfect for driving around without ever having to break from his crouching position.

And right now, he needs all the deductive powers he can get.

That thing...that thing in his room. That person. Not thing. Not creature. Nothing paranormal. The person.

It was like they'd made Grace immaterial. Like they'd simply pulled her through the bars of her own bed.

"What the fuck have you _done_, Lawliet?"

L winces. He's been both dreading and expecting Rae's return. The Shinigami's voice is loaded with so much hatred it's practically dripping from the words. And there's more than a little bit of fear, underneath all the loathing.

"They got her," he says simply. Might as well get straight to the point.

Rae looks like it might actually explode. Its flames consume the entire passenger seat and half the dashboard.

"You _bet your life_, you scumbag!" it yells, accusingly. "How? What?"

"I'm certain that it's Holland," he says. "Well, about ninety-six percent certain."

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE HOW CERTAIN YOU ARE! SHE WAS IN YOUR _CARE_!"

L blinks.

_You...why are you acting this way?_

"I did everything I could," he replies, even though he doesn't believe it himself. He's hardly going to confess his own self-doubt to a Shinigami that attempts to destroy him on a regular basis.

"You...you don't deserve to _live_," Rae says, voice suddenly quiet and furious. "You ought to have been _watching_ her-"

"You too," L snaps. "You knew I was running short on waking hours, and you _still_ left. You're as much to blame as I am."

"I left to work things _out!_" Rae growls. "If you were a little less self-centered, you'd have realised that, too."

_So, one minute you're acting as if no-one matters but yourself and your goals, and the next minute you're in tears because one little girl is in danger and you declare my own self-interest with disgust._

_Which one is it?_

_Which one is the lie?_

_Who are you, Shinigami? What do you want?_

Irrelevant, L reminds himself. Rae is of no consequence. The only important thing, right now, is Grace.

And saving her, no matter what.

Besides, he knows Rae's motives. There's no way they could possibly have changed. It's just playing a role, a new character. It's become better at pretending to take the moral high-ground. It's learning.

That's all.

"So what did you work out?" L asks, speeding down another side street.

Rae folds its arms across its chest.

"The king either doesn't know, or won't tell me."

"So it is another test," L concludes. "Does this mean you can pass a different test and we can both come out of this arrangement intact?"

The Shinigami stares at him for a long minute.

"Fuck you," it says darkly. "You've left her to _die_."

"And your entire venture was fruitless."

Rae grabs him by the collar and yanks. Hard. L barely misses a tree.

"And what's _your_ excuse, Lawliet? You lost the ability to use a pen?"

"What do you mean?" L asks, slamming his hand down on the brake.

"Bernard Holland dies of a heart attack immediately after delivering all of the children in his care to the nearest police station," Rae says, its eyes glittering. They're more red and awful than he's ever seen them before.

"No."

"You didn't even think about it, you monster."

But oh, he is thinking about it. He'd give anything - almost _anything _- to have Grace safely back beside him. The thought of it is so attractive that his non-dominant hand keeps sneaking towards the hem of his shirt.

_If I write my own name next, if I kill myself immediately, then I cannot become Light. So the world would be safe._

_But then you would give this note to someone else. And I cannot be responsible for that_.

He'll find Grace. He'll find her the same old-fashioned way he's always solved cases.

And he'll do it soon.

He'll have to. He doesn't know how much time she's got left.

* * *

_It's kind of a miracle when dawn rolls around and you've managed not to kill, starve, or lose Gemma. She rolls over in her cot and stares at you with dark blue eyes._

_Her father's eyes. _

_"Glub!" she announces, and inserts her thumb into her mouth inexpertly._

_She's a perfect baby. She never gets sick, she eats well, she sleeps through the night, and she barely ever cries. Heck, she even seems to soil her nappies at the most convenient times possible._

_Predictably, everyone adores her. She's already met most of the executive detectives in the Kira case. You expected L to be good with kids - after all, he used to have plenty of time for you, and you're sure you were a pathetic slob even as a child - but even Near seems to partial to her. He donated some of his own precious toys for her baby shower._

_She's something of a mascot for justice_

_She's not even one, and she's already cooler than you._

_You roll out of bed. There are crumbs on your mattress, and now they're stuck to your skin. Your belly jiggles when you move, and you hate it, you hate all of it. You don't keep any mirrors in your room, because you don't want to see what you look like._

_You move one bottle from the fridge to the microwave, and pull the other one from the freezer to the fridge. Got to feed the baby, after all._

_They're taking a stupid risk, leaving her with you for a whole twenty-four hours. Not that you're complaining, because you'd do anything for Matt, and you kinda miss living in this house. You were politely moved on after Gemma was born._

_Now you live in Dwayne's basement. The two of you get drunk every night, and eat copious amounts of chocolate. It's okay, except for how he keeps trying to set you up with his sister._

_But even safe in her own heavily-guarded home, Gemma is still in significant danger as long as she's with you._

_You're untrustworthy, for a start. Near was horrified when he found out Matt had scheduled you as a babysitter._

_They think you don't hear them muttering about you, but you do. You know what they all think. Fucking Near - who's so good at everything - rates you lower than most worms. You still fantasise about beating him, but it's such a pathetic premise that even you're embarrassed by it._

_Near could beat you blindfolded and half-dead, with both hands tied behind his back._

_He's the single most hated thing in your world. It was Near who finally convinced L to remove you completely from the Kira case, and Near who introduced Jasmine to Matt, and Near who keeps forcing you into situations where you're stuck with Dwayne._

_And it's Near who keeps trying to drag Matt further away from you, inch by inch, a little more every day. Near cares about Matt, and he doesn't want him to suffer just because he pities you. Or so he says._

_It's like he's just out to ruin your whole fucking life. And yet you...you want Matt to be happy too. If he asked you, you'd walk away and never speak to him again. All he needs to do is ask._

_But he won't._

_You pick Gemma up and cradle her in your pudgy arms. She has a scrap of strawberry blonde hair on her head. She's going to be stunning when she grows up._

_She's not going to have any other choice, with the parents she's got._

_You still remember the last time you believed you might have had any sort of chance with Matt. It was right before you went after Takada. Right before you almost got him killed. Right before you should have died._

_You had resigned yourself to the fact that you needed to die. That that was what Near needed in order to defeat Kira. Back before you realised this case was so complicated that you could never possibly understand it._

_Anyway, you weren't about to tell him about your pointless little sacrifice. You wanted him to be safe and protected and happy. You wanted him to live._

_In a way, that part had worked out well. No thanks to you._

_But you remember him standing right in front of you, close enough that you could have kissed him._

_'You're going to live, right?'_

_'What are you talking about?'_

_'You're not thinking of letting them kill you, are you? You're going to walk away from this just the same as I am, right?'_

_'Yeah, yeah.'_

_He'd gotten even closer, then. Right up in your face. God, you loved him back then, too._

_'Promise me.'_

_'What? What are you asking for, you idiot? I'm not going to die!'_

_'Good. Promise, then. Promise me you'll live to see the other side of this.'_

_But you couldn't. Weak. You'd just selected your favourite pistol from the stash under your bed. And you. You remember how you felt. Like you were going to miss him more than breathing, more than anything else._

_You remember grabbing his arm, the most you'd ever let yourself do. You had gloves on, or something. There was still material between the two of you._

_'Mello?'_

_Mello. No one has used that name in years. You're just Mihael, now. You don't deserve a nickname._

_'Mello? Listen to me. If you're going, then I'm going too.'_

_You felt like god when he said that. You felt like you mattered to him. You lied extra hard after that, of course, anything to protect him from harm. And then neither of you died and the Takada incident passed, and from then on he acted as if he'd never said it. As if he didn't remember._

_You understood. You still understand. People do crazy things when they think they might die._

_And that's it. The entire memory. The first time you ever touched him. You don't know why you recall that moment so fondly, when he's hugged you a thousand times since then. Pity hugs, and relief hugs, and I-miss-Jasmine hugs. Plenty of hugs.  
_

_There's a lot you don't understand. You just trundle along and eat chocolate and try not to drop the babies you're supposed to be looking after._

_Gemma drools on your shoulder. She's asleep again. _

_You don't hate Jasmine any more. Matt's been so happy since they got married that you can't begrudge her a thing._

_You just hate Near._

_

* * *

_

"The police want an update," Raye says with a tiny, apologetic smile. It's the early hours of the morning, and L's only just barely gotten in the door.

The man seems to have wasted away overnight. He looks sallow and thin, and worn out, and the bags under his eyes have become positively enormous.

Naomi wants to tell him that it's not his fault, but she knows that would be pointless. L blames himself for everything, because he takes responsibility for everything. That's just part of who he is.

Sometimes she can't decide whether he's really arrogant, or just really, stupendously _good_.

But right now, he's mostly just a mess.

And he must be facing something of an internal dilemma right now. Updating the police means either lying to the authorities, or admitting they were outsmarted.

"We could bring Clarke in," Mail suggests. "She may know where to find Holland."

L stares at his sort-of son.

"Do you even know where she is?"

Mail shrugs.

"I know where she lives."

"But not her daily movements, her place of work, or her likely levels of paranoia," L counters, his voice utterly emotionless.

"I can ascertain so much from her blog updates, but that's it."

"Not good enough," L says harshly. "Not at all. Get a camera on her house. We need to make sure we acquire her in such a way that Holland isn't notified."

_The last thing he wants is to make Holland angry_, Naomi thinks. _We need to be extremely careful._

"Does this mean we're convinced that Holland is Steve?" she asks curiously. "Anyone could have been the person you saw in your room, right?"

"I certainly didn't see a face," L agrees. "To be honest, I couldn't even comment on the intruder's gender, or general body shape. But it _was_ too tall to be Holland."

"It was his car crashed into the fucking power pole," Raye says angrily.

"Yes," L replies. "He reported the vehicle stolen a good two hours prior to the event."

"So have we checked to see if anyone other than Holland left fingerprints in the car?"

L glares at her husband, eyes hollow and dark.

"And what would that prove? Holland is probably intending to frame someone for his crimes."

"We're testing everything, all the same," Naomi assures her husband. "Is there anything else you want us to do, L?"

He's crouched on the floor, the backs of his hands resting against the polished wood. He looks pathetic and beaten.

Naomi thinks that if it were raining outside, L wouldn't even be indoors.

"I want repeat autopsies on all of the murder victims," he says, after a solid minute of contemplative silence. "Starting with the Backstrums, and moving chronologically backwards from there."

"What will that prove?" Raye wonders.

"I don't know yet!"

Raye stares at their boss.

"Calm down. I was just asking a question."

"I am calm. I will be calmer when we find Grace."

"He's functioning just fine, Raye," Naomi warns her husband. "Back off!"

Raye glowers at her and folds his arms. He's not happy. None of them are happy.

"L," she says gently. "The police."

He regards her quizzically.

"Oh. Yes. We need them on board now, so you ought to tell them the truth. Grace has been taken, and we suspect the children are being kept somewhere in our list of possible hideouts. We require their assistance for a city-wide search. Immediately."

"I'll contact them," Raye says grudgingly. He's usually the most adept at dealing with the police.

"Thank you," L replies, his voice eerily quiet.

Naomi knows what's troubling him. They're running out of time. Holland wanted Grace badly, and that means he's probably going to act fast now that he's got her.

And they don't know what he's going to do.

"It might be nothing," she suggests softly. "He might just need her to meditate. He might just hypnotise her, or maybe he wants her spiritual energy, or something."

"Please stop talking," L replies.

* * *

The police are reluctant to assist, but not suspiciously so. They insist on conducting their searches in groups of fifteen or more. Each team is heavily armed and equipped with attack dogs.

"This is ridiculous," L says flatly, perusing the latest email from the Chief of Police via his dashboard-mounted computer. "There is no justification for such high levels of precaution. It would be far wiser to split the available officers into smaller teams and cover more ground."

"People are frightened," Naomi reminds him over the intercom. "We might be certain that this is all sleight of hand, but the media have convinced most ordinary people that Steve is wielding ghosts and demons."

L knows that. It's been thirteen hours since Grace went missing. He's back in his own car, investigating a few select locations on his own. The others members of his team are working in pairs.

There's one venue in particular that's piqued his interest. A disused gym about half a mile from the city centre. It's out of the way, and would be big enough for, well...

The problem is, he doesn't know _what_ Holland is doing. Or planning to do. If he's keeping the children alive for any length of time, then he must be providing them with facilities. Running water, toilets, and a few rooms worth of floorspace, as an absolute minimum. If he's conducting scientific experiments, he should need a fully-fledged laboratory.

Then again, L has no reason to suspect that Holland is not, for example, taking them to some fortune-telling parlour, testing something on them quickly, and then killing them.

Or worse. Sacrificing them deliberately for some theoretical black-magic power.

That's why the list is so long. Any place that is disused, or that could have disused rooms. Any place that is associated with any occult or religious practices. Every place of worship. So many buildings, so many potential places to hide.

He needs to search all of them.

And still, the list itself may not be sufficient. If Holland is stashing his captives in someone else's home, well. They'd need to acquire multiple warrants, and he would have a hellishly difficult time deducing which of Holland's associates were most likely to be involved in something like this.

As far as L knows, he might not even _have_ contacts, except the people he speaks to on the internet. In the entire time they've been tracking Holland, they haven't seen even one client, let alone any potential business partners.

And if it is something unnatural - it's not, but if it _is_ - then he has no way of detecting it or beating it.

_Kira. Kira all over again. Chasing my tail, round in circles. Always missing the most important thing._

He arrives at the gym and expertly breaks in through a half-open window. His search is fast, thorough, and methodical. Top to bottom, right to left, no cupboard left unopened, no speck of dust escapes his keen visual examination. By the time he's finished, he has established that there are only two levels, with no hidden rooms, and no inconsistencies in the infrastructure. Just a lot of cobwebs, and a few rusting shower cubicles.

L presses one hand against the wall.

"Rae?"

"What do you fucking want?"

"You can make yourself immaterial at will, correct?"

It's been bothering him. The one thing he cannot explain through technology or cleverness. Perhaps it is the key to unravelling Holland.

"You already know that."

"Yes," L agrees. "But can you make anyone else immaterial? If you wanted to? Just by touching them?"

"No."

"Is that a power that any other creature possesses, to your knowledge?"

"There _aren't_ any other creatures!" Rae says hotly. "You're making fucking _excuses_."

"The locks were intact," L replies softly. "And the keys had not been moved. It...the intruder pulled her through the bars."

"That's not possible."

"So says the giant invisible talking skeleton."

Rae strikes him across the face with the back of its hand. L touches the mark left behind, skin warm and still stinging. He feels a tiny bit better.

"Shinigami are real! Nothing else is! You need to find this fucking creep before...oh god. Just find him. You're meant to be the smartest detective in the world. What are you _doing_ just standing here?"

It's having hysterics. L observes it with mild interest.

"Processing. So you've never heard - even in folklore - of anything that could make an entire living person immaterial, even for a few seconds?"

The only logical explanation would be that Holland's associate has some sort of ultimate skeleton key, able to unlock any lock he or she encounters.

Rae grabs him by his shirt and hoists him up in the air, trapping him against the wall.

"Use the death note," it rasps. "I don't even care if I benefit or not-"

"You're a very good actor. Of course you would benef-"

"THEN SURRENDER IT TO ME!" Rae howls. "GIVE IT UP FOR A MOMENT SO I CAN USE IT! I DON'T CARE. YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE HER, SHE WAS OURS. SHE WAS OUR RESPONSIBILITY!"

"And then you'll give it to some other, slightly weaker, person and become king."

"You shouldn't care more about me being king than about Grace being alive!" Rae yells. "Even if you're so screwed in the head that you really _do_ think I'm evil, I'm hardly going to be able to hurt anyone! Holland is hurting people right now! Just kill him! Go after him with a gun! Hire a hitman. I don't even fucking care!"

It's actually _shaking_ him. L stares. And then, very, very slowly, he speaks.

"Have you heard of anything in the folklore?"

Rae drops him unceremoniously, and regards its own hand with obvious confusion.

"I don't...of course there was. All sorts of things have all sorts of abilities in folklore. But you need to focus on _reality_."

L tilts his head, one thumb pressed to his incisors.

"What just happened?" he asks, quietly.

Rae doesn't seem to see him. It seems to be struggling with something.

"I'm not going to stop," it whispers viciously, possibly to itself. "I'm always going to look out the window, so shut up."

L has no idea what that is supposed to mean, but he doesn't have much time to dwell on the Shinigami's apparent mental breakdown.

_You care for Grace_, he thinks. _And there's a forty-nine percent chance that that is the reason you couldn't see her lifespan. As king, you are more impaired than ordinary Shinigami by humans that you care for. Probably to stop you from falling in love and dying._

It doesn't seem to have worked that out, though.

Maybe he'll tell it.

One day.

* * *

Their searches turn up absolutely nothing. No clues. A thousand possibilities, but none that are more likely than chance.

Ideally, they would be tracking Holland himself, but there have been no reported sightings of him whatsoever since before last night. Obviously, he knows they're after him. He's hiding in his base, wherever that may be.

_Always one step ahead, Light_.

Rae helped him with the search, too. It trawled the city on its own, wandering through some of the buildings that were too dangerous or too illegal for the others to enter. L didn't go back and check on its findings. Right now, he trusts it as much as any other member of his team. It cares for Grace, and that gives him the sudden and welcome ability to predict its moves and motives.

And L...L cares for Grace. And now she's missing. Gone. Possibly...

Time is running out.

L still needs sleep. He curls up in an armchair while the Penbers are arguing and Mail is busy downloading all of Clarke's documents and files.

He dreams of the Shyster, towering over him, looking down.

_Second best. Second best. Second best._

_

* * *

_

When L wakes up, the early morning light is filtering through the window, bleaching everything in the room to a sickly grey. Mail is counting his beads again. Naomi and her husband are hovering over one of the computers.

Watari is still out on the streets, patrolling, looking for clues. He won't come back until L instructs him to do so.

Sometimes L wonders if Watari actually has more self-control then he does.

Sometimes, he thinks that wouldn't be hard.

Rae is sitting on the floor, one hand snapping open and shut rhythmically. It's frightened, and it's quiet. In some ways, L wishes the Shinigami was not so profoundly affected by the recent events. It's just one more testimony to the fact that Holland is untouchable, and unreachable. Twice as intelligent as L is, despite his manic one-sided conversations.

_You won't be alone any more._

Is he intending for the children to be friends with something? Is he intending to try and make the children _into_ some sort of creature?

_Who did you think you were talking to?_ L wonders. Could it _be_ another Shinigami, after all this time? Rae is operating under very unique conditions, after all. Maybe setting Rae and Rem as his Shinigami standard had been a mistake. Maybe there are other types of death gods with other abilities and motives.

Yes. That would explain everything quite neatly.

"L!" Naomi says sharply, whirling around.

"What is it?" he asks, blearily.

"We've just got word from police. Steve has struck again, less than an hour ago."

"_What_?" Rae says sharply.

"What?" L asks, equally shaken. "Again? So soon?"

"Apparently," Naomi replies tersely. "Over the west side of town, family called Smythe. Father was a millionaire. Huge house. All the security fittings you could dream of. No forced entry - no signs of any entry at all. Both parents shot in the back. Their four-year-old son, Gregor, is missing."

_If he's taken another child, does that mean Grace is..._

_No, it's not certain. But it's likely._

_Seventy-one percent, at least_.

Rae looks a little sick. L can empathise with how it must be feeling. He peers at the photographs on the computer screen. The Smythe parents were both dark-haired and blue-eyed, while Gregor has honey-coloured hair and eyes.

"Did anyone witness anything unusual around the time that the murders took place?" L asks delicately. He's desperately in need of clues. Hints. Anything.

"Well...yes and no?" Naomi says, sounding strangely awkward. "There was definitely a complication."

"Complication?"

"Rhianna Smythe was having an affair," Raye says bluntly. He clicks the computer screen once, bringing up a picture of a curly-haired man with freckles and buck teeth. "With Roger Butterworth, a primary school teacher who lived down the road."

"Sordid, but is it relevant?"

"Well, yes," Naomi says carefully. "According to the neighbours' police report, Mr Smythe came home early. It's likely that he caught them, er, together. Steve struck only a few minutes after he entered the house."

L reaches blindly for the sugar bowl he knows he left somewhere at the base of his chair.

"So there were three fatalities, then?"

_Surely the third person would have had a chance to turn around? What did that mean to you, Holland?_

_Although it's not you that goes in, is it? It's your accomplice, whoever he may be. Who apparently moves so fast he's almost a blur, and can transport children right through walls._

_And does not wish to be seen. How did he handle it, this extra person in the room?_

"Only two shots were fired, apparently," Raye concludes. "Both Smythes were found dead in their bedroom. Strange thing is, no one has been able to find Butterworth."

L runs one hand through his hair.

"He's taken an adult this time?"

"Maybe," Naomi concedes. "No one was ever seen leaving the apartment, and he hasn't returned home. It's weird, that's what it is. Where would he go?"

"The police are trying to keep it quiet," her husband adds. "Of course, the media will say that he saw the demon and was frightened out of his wits."

"Of course," L agrees. He's trying desperately not to think about Grace. "There is likely to be nothing in the house. We know that whatever Steve is doing, he's removing all of his equipment from the house extremely rapidly after the murders take place. It's possible his accomplice is only there to make sure the gun device is procured safely."

"That doesn't explain what happened in our hotel room," Mail says boredly, kicking the toe of one dirty boot against the side of his desk.

"That is all the explanation I have at present," L says wearily. "My concluding statement is this; despite there being a consistent lack of evidence left at the scene of crime, I would like to visit the Smythe's house. As soon as possible."

It's something to _do_, at least. Something to focus on, other than Grace, and how she might be dead.

"You bastard," Rae says from the floor. "What have you done?"

It's worried. Too worried.

_Was her life-span due to run out today, Shinigami_?

He wonders, but he doesn't ask. He doesn't want to know.

* * *

_It would be unpleasant_, L thinks, _to know exactly when the people around you are going to die_. He supposes that is why it is against the rules for a Shinigami to care for a human.

The Smythe house turns out to be a glorious affair, with thick plush carpets and perfectly polished floors, and an atrium the size of L's entire base. There are live plants and man-sized statues all over the place, and a few very expensive original paintings adorning the walls. Several of the plumbing fittings have real gold plating, and the fridge is big enough that his entire team could comfortably take a nap in it.

"Wow. I wish we had the money to buy a house like this," Raye says, awed.

"We probably do, honey," Naomi murmurs. L's eyes flit from one item of furniture to the next, examining every nuance of the room. Lastly, he checks the bolts on the door. Not even the slightest hint of tampering. As expected.

_So how did you get in?_

"The master bedroom is upstairs," Mail reports, checking his laptop. "Gregor's bedroom was right next door."

"Nice. Cheating on your husband a few metres away from your sleeping kid," Raye says disgustedly.

"I would consider that a heck of a lot better than shooting two people dead," he wife reminds him.

"Possibly three," L says thoughtfully. "It is physically plausible that Holland's associate could have lined up two of the victims so accurately that one bullet killed them both. But if that is the case, then where is the elusive third body?"

A five-year-old child is a relatively easy burden for an average-sized adult. A grown man would be nearly impossible to carry, regardless of whether he's alive or dead. L doesn't understand where he could have gone. Surely he's not simply hiding out of fear, or embarrassment.

He _was_ caught having an affair. People tend to react irrationally in highly emotional situations.

"Raye," he says abruptly. "It rained last night for approximately two hours, correct?"

Raye frowns.

"Er, yes. While you were asleep."

"Only about half an hour prior to the time of the attack?"

"That is correct," Mail deadpans, typing furiously.

"Then there should be a set of footprints somewhere in the yard to indicate that Butterworth left this house again, if he ever did so," L says thoughtfully. "Beyond that, we should only see footprints from the intruder, and Mr Smythe."

There is a path, of course, an elaborate one of concrete and decorative stone. But the gate that it leads to is seven-foot, sturdy, and fingerprint-locked. Therefore, Butterworth must have left the property same way they entered it; directly over the fence. Which means his feet must have touched the ground at some point. All of the earlier prints would have been washed from the ground by the rain.

"Good point," Raye agrees. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Please check the perimeter, plants, and other sharp edges for clothing and skin fragments, as well," L continues. "It is possible in his terror that he scraped himself on something."

"Right!"

Raye spins on his heel and heads back outside. Naomi folds her arms, clearly awaiting further instruction.

"N, M, I want both of you to search upstairs. M, please check the master bedroom. N, I want you to go through all of the other rooms. I will search the lower level."

"Understood," Naomi says firmly.

"Fuck, these statues are ugly," Mail comments, poking a marble replica of Michelangelo's _David_ with the end of his pencil.

"Any evidence of tampering or strange wiring is important," L tells them both, "but mostly we are still trying to find out what happened to Butterworth."

Naomi nods, already halfway up the stairs. Mail follows her, head down and shoulders hunched.

L waits until they are out of sight.

"Can you please do a sweep of the rooms upstairs, as well?" he requests, once they are gone. "We must finish this as quickly and thoroughly as possible."

"Got it," Rae grits, and disappears. It hasn't been talking to him much, today, but at least it's compliant. They have a shared goal, after all.

One that is rapidly becoming less and less achievable.

He has a tiny camera in one pocket, and a canister of fingerprint powder in the other. He has a magnifying glass in one sleeve. He rarely needs anything else for basic sleuthing.

He works quickly and methodically. He checks the walls for hollows, and the ceiling for cuts and manholes. He checks the security grille over the windows. Then he lifts the rugs and checks the floor. Finally, he checks every available container and vessel he can see. Cabinets, drawers, ovens, ornamental vases, everything.

It's strange, the way there isn't evidence of _anything_ strange. Whatever Holland is using, L doesn't fully understand it.

"Nothing upstairs," Rae reports irritably. "Have you found anything? We need to go. Jeevas has some data on Clarke now, doesn't he? Wouldn't it be best just to question her?"

"I thought you despised me for torturing people," L says softly. "Or is it okay because this is someone you care about?"

"I can't believe you can be so calm," Rae says, shaking visibly. "I can't believe how evil you fucking are! For the love of god, just-"

"You are a god," L points out distractedly, examining a dirty fingerprint on the wall. It's definitely Gregor's.

"I can't fix this! _You_ can!"

"You can help. Why don't you search the entire city, top to bottom, every building, every home, every room, every vehicle. She must be somewhere!"

"That would take days."

"Shinigami can travel the world in a matter of hours, can't they?" L asks.

"I can still only process so quickly," Rae snarls. L touches the wall lightly.

"I think, at this point, that would still be the most beneficial use of your considerable talents," he says slowly. "Rae. There is a distinct chance – thirty-one percent – that we may never find her through any other means."

Rae folds its arms. The fire inside its chest is pitifully dull. It is hurting, and it's worried.

"Done," it says darkly. "Lawliet, if anything has happened to her, I swear to…I _swear_ I'll kill you. And after everything you've done, you won't be going to the next world. That much I know."

_Hell for me, is it, Shinigami?_

_Do Shinigami know such things, then? Is it written over my head, alongside my name?_

"I understand," L whispers. He can hear the distinctive footsteps of Raye making his way back to the house. "And thank you."

The Shinigami whirls out of the room with one sweep of its knife-sharp wings, leaving him completely alone for a few seconds.

"L," Raye says, a few seconds later. "Absolutely nothing outside. Butterworth never left the building, unless he can fly."

"If they hid a body, they certainly didn't hide it down here," L replies.

"L!" an unfamiliar voice hollers from upstairs, and it takes L a moment to realise that its Mail's.

Who hardly ever raises his voice. Unless he's really irritated, or something has gone horribly wrong.

Raye charges up the stairs, and L follows him at a brisk shuffle. They collide with Naomi on the way to the master bedroom, where Mail is standing with his back to the wall, looking even paler than normal.

"Hey," he says gruffly. "Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

The master bedroom is predictably enormous, with a king-sized canopy bed in the centre, a statue of a man right beside the nightstand, and expensive potted plants in every corner. There's a large but tasteful mural over the head of the bed, and the wardrobe knobs seem to be intricately detailed porcelain.

"Both would be desirable," L says quietly. The Penbers are each gazing around the room, with identical expressions of confusion.

L isn't sure what has spooked him, either.

"Right. One thing. The Smythe's were found here and here, right?"

He indicates a spot on the other side of the bed, and then one between himself and the nightstand.

"That is correct."

"Okay. In that case, I've found Butterworth."

L's eyes are drawn to the walk-in wardrobe a few feet away from Mail's right hand.

"Is that the good news?"

"Yep."

The younger man makes no move to actually open the wardrobe, and L waits impatiently to hear what else he has to say.

"But they bad news," he drawls, "is, uh, I have no idea what the fuck we're dealing with any more. Because this dude? He's got some serious powers"

"What on earth makes you say that?" L asks carefully.

Mail looks almost green around the edges of his face. L hopes his depleted immune system isn't finally being overridden by some horrible disease.

"Because that," he says, jerking his thumb in the direction of the oddly-placed statue, "is Butterworth."

* * *

The statue has buck teeth and curly hair, and it is clad in a polo shirt, with a life-sized stone rolex around its wrist. Naomi's not sure how none of them marked it as strange to begin with.

Other than that, she can't quite process what is going on.

It takes just seventy seconds for all four of them to run back to the car, and L instructs her husband to drive at no less than one hundred kilometres per hour until they are back at base.

"It turned him," Raye pronounces, "into fucking _stone_."

He's said the same sentence about fifteen different ways since they've left the Smythes. Naomi briefly touches his hand. He's not in any fit condition to drive, but he still seems to be slightly better off than both Mail and L, who look like they've been hit with a bomb.

"It's happening all over again," L says distantly. "I honestly believed this case wasn't grounded in the paranormal."

"How did it turn him to stone?" she wonders. Mail inclines his head.

"It's most likely because he got a look at it, right? L, weren't you saying earlier that no-one had actually _seen_ this thing? And you only saw it from the back. Its face-"

"No more speculation," L says. He has his laptop propped up on his knees, clicking as if his life depends on it. "I need to know what this thing is. I know nothing really about mythical and legendary creatures. I never really thought I'd have to know. Again."

L, of course, is now convinced he's dealing with some reincarnation of Light. Which Holland is _not_.

"Gorgon," Raye says, barely audible.

"What?"

"Gorgon," he says, more loudly. "Gorgon, gorgon, look it up. Most famous one was called Medusa."

L blinks, momentarily roused from his obvious downward spiral.

"It's the most infamous monster that – according to popular literature – could do something like this," Naomi explains to him. "It turns people to stone if they look in its eyes."

"That would make sense," L murmurs. He's practically sucking his thumb. "Can gorgons make people immaterial?"

Naomi shrugs. The silence stretches for several minutes, punctuated only by rapid keystrokes.

"Only about two percent of online content states the gorgons are capable of such a thing," Mail reports dutifully.

"So it's a possibility," L concludes. "What about moving at impossibly high speeds?"

"Is this really helping?" Naomi asks. "We know what this thing can do! We've seen it."

"No, I think it is safe to say that we have not seen it," L corrects her tersely. "And before we go any further with this investigation, there is some equipment we're going to need, or we are all going to end up like Butterworth."

"That's right," Raye agrees, voice grim. "And even if we can give this creature a name, that…that doesn't mean we know how to beat it."

"Just get us home," L commands. "As quickly as possible. _Now._"

* * *

L would really like two things right now. One, a tower of cake taller than he is. Preferably chocolate. He really craves chocolate when he gets stressed. Sometimes he hates having Mail around.

And two, he wants his Shinigami back. Because he has only the faintest of ideas as to what he ought to do, and yet he needs to act immediately, if not sooner. Not that Rae has been an awful lot of help so far, but it's still the best connection L has to whatever it is he's fighting.

First of all, he has Watari prepare the sunglasses. Then he calls the Australian branch of his favourite firearm provider, because if he had to make a completely uneducated guess as to what might harm a supernatural, immaterial being, he'd choose something shiny and semiautomatic.

And then he sends Raye and Mail to check Holland's house, one more time. Especially the garden.

According to _Clevatt's Mythical Creatures_, gorgons are supposed to have 'vaguely female bodies', and hair 'made entirely of live serpents seeping from the scalp'. Only, if the literature isn't one hundred percent accurate about the abilities, there's a high chance it may be mistaken about the hair.

And one thing that resembles a snake is a really, really big earthworm. So he wants them to take the interior apart, find any evidence that might possibly be inside that house, and then dig up the garden. For completeness.

There is no longer time to be cautious. He needs to act without certainty, and he needs to do whatever it takes to succeed.

This is his best possible chance of finding Grace – or Gregor, or _any_ of the children – still alive.

Fifteen percent likelihood.

Naomi returns back to base from her own mission, with a blindfolded and handcuffed Amanda Clarke in tow. The young woman's face is waxen and terrified, but she refuses to respond to his questioning.

"I am loyal to my Lord," she says quietly.

Watari is finished with his earlier task, so L instructs him to begin straight away. They don't have a proper torture chamber here in the hotel room, but they have a near-soundproof bathroom and portable instruments and his handler has always been very good at making do in difficult situations.

* * *

L is pacing up and down the corridor. Naomi can hear the muffled sounds of Clarke intermittently screaming and crying.

She'd really rather not witness it. L seems to be far more inclined to torture people when he's stressed or frightened. She disapproves of the way it seems to be almost a knee-jerk reaction for him.

"There is," he says softly, finally coming to a stop in front of her, "at least a seventeen percent chance that Holland is trying to make those children into carbon copies of his gorgon creature."

"That makes sense," she replies, barely repressing a shudder. "I'm not sure how he'd go about it, but if he doesn't have another one to breed from, I suppose trying to convert children somehow is the next most logical step? For a psychopath, anyway."

"If Holland believes he has special abilities, he may believe he is capable of making a monster from a human," L says with a shrug.

Holland _had_ said things about not wanting to be alone. She supposes he's trying to build himself an army of things that can turn people to stone at a glance.

Which is…almost worse than someone with a death note. Holland would be unstoppable. Absolutely unstoppable.

"If he is continuing to take children," L continues, "then either he is destroying or mutilating the victims during the process of trying to change them, or it's such a long process that he's trialling it on as many subjects as possible because failure would set him back by months."

Yes, she knows that. She knows there is a chance that Grace is dead, and such a chance increased when Holland attacked yet another household.

But…god. That little girl wasn't just their charge, she had become a part of their _lives_. Their mascot. Their friend.

"Which of those two scenarios is more likely?" she asks, closing her eyes.

She hears L shuffle and fidget.

"The former, I believe," he whispers sadly. "Although I do not like to think about it."

"We'll get her back," Naomi says thickly. "If she's alive, if we possibly can, we'll get her back."

"Yes."

He doesn't believe her. She's not sure she believes herself. Holland has all but broken L, and if L gives up, the man has as good as won.

And she's not about to let her boss step aside and let the next Light assume his undeserved, pseudo-divine throne.

The bathroom door slides open.

"Miss Clarke is convinced that Holland's regular place of work is a little shopfront located at 22 Clifford Street, Paddington," he says politely. There's blood on his gloves. "She has met him there once, a few months ago. She also thinks the place had a basement level, which she did not enter."

L jerks visibly. Naomi can tell just by looking at him that he's riding on adrenaline.

"Thank you, Watari. Are you sure that is all the useful information she knows?"

Watari bows slightly.

"Not yet, L."

"Keep going, then," L advises. "N, we need to-"

"I know," she interrupts. "The guns, the glasses, and the fastest car we own, right?"

"Yes."

He sounds a little relieved. Sometimes it strikes Naomi that she might be the closest thing L has to a friend. Or at least, an equal.

She's pretty sure he'd prefer Matsuda, but that's no longer a choice he can make.

The sunglasses are amazing things. Watari put them together in just fifteen minutes. The lenses are about an inch thick, and consist of a network of carefully-placed mirrors, so that they allow panoramic view that is constructed entirely from a series of reflections. She takes two pairs. They aren't perfect – they were a rush job, after all, and some of the inside edges are still sharp – but they're a darn sight better than nothing.

Naomi really doesn't feel like getting turned to stone today. Or any other day. Ever.

L is pulling out of the driveway before she even makes it to the bottom of the stairs, and she is forced to run and jump into the moving vehicle. She bites back a nasty retort as L attempts to break every speed limit in the universe getting them to Paddington.

It's not as if any self-respecting police officer would ever want to be responsible for pulling him over.

"I have come to a conclusion of my own," she says. It's a somewhat heartening one, and L needs all of the positive sentiments he can get.

"What is it?"

"It sounds like this creature is either being possessed or blackmailed by Holland," she tells him.

"How does that change anything?" L enquires. "I agree that is a distinct possibility – probably sixty-four percent – but it does not benefit us in any way."

"It means that you're earlier estimation of supernatural creatures still stands. This thing probably never would have done anything to come to human attention had Holland not found it."

"Ah. So you thought that telling me might boost my ego?"

"More like your morale," she says gently. "And also, this thing may be completely reluctant to follow Holland and may even turn on him if we can free it. There's also a chance that it dislikes what it's doing and probably won't murder and kidnap if acting under free will."

"Conjecture," L says dully. "Everything is conjecture. The reality is that we are about to engage in conflict with a dangerous man and a creature with powers we cannot predict."

"Yeah," Naomi agrees.

It's what she signed up for, after all.

* * *

Watari contacts them about seventy seconds before L reaches Clifford Street.

"Yes?" he says brusquely.

"Holland has allegedly mentioned he has family in Washington, United States," Watari informs him diplomatically. "I believe that is all she knows."

"Thank you," L says impatiently. "Please inform the police as to the steps we have taken, and release her into their custody."

"Understood."

L is authorised to hold suspects for questioning, just as he's authorised to use any means necessary. He doesn't _like_ torturing people, but he doesn't have any other choice.

This is for Grace.

The shopfront is crammed between trendy designer clothing stores and coffee shops on a little Clayton's mall. When viewed from a distance, it appears to be a tiny little place, maybe forty square metres of floor-space. But as he gets out of the car, L can see that the building extends backwards significantly, making up for its lack of width in length.

There is no chimney on the roof, and no high-security waste disposal containers outside.

_So it isn't likely that he's conducting typical scientific experiments in there. Which fits with his personality, of course_.

Light would have been as logical as possible. L is a little relieved to see some difference between the two, at last.

He pulls his sunglasses on. His view of the world is unaltered, thanks to Watari's expertise. He needs to keep them about half an inch down his nose, however, because there's a sharp edge that sits a little too close to his left eye.

_My hand has been forced. Holland moved too quickly and now we are struggling to keep up, cutting corners and forced to make uninformed decisions._

Holland is running scared. If they don't stop him soon – today – then L suspects he will pack up and leave town overnight.

He slips his gun under his shirt, so that the barrel rests against his death note. He had almost forgotten about the damned thing, what with Holland and Grace going missing and monsters who turn people into stone and Rae having a mental meltdown all over the place.

Just when he needs Rae to be its usual high-functioning, ridiculously intelligent self, it turns into a gibbering nonsensical mess.

Not that that matters now. He can hear the soft sound of footsteps inside the building, and Rae might be two or three days away from completing its citywide search.

"Someone is inside," Naomi points out needlessly. "Basement level, I think."

"I concur," L agrees, and points towards the door. "But the visible level is designed to give the impression that the building is unoccupied. The lights are off and the door is closed. But once we take a few more steps, we'll be in range of the cameras."

Naomi's gaze flits to the tiny red light on the porch roof.

"Ah," she says. "We'll have to run from here?"

"In one moment," he replies. "The first level is a simple fortune-telling parlour, much like the inside of Holland's home. The stairs ought to be in the centre of the room, if it is structured similarly to other buildings in the area. However, there's a chance that there may simply be a hatch in the floor. Whatever happens, we need to get downstairs and incapacitate Holland."

By his estimations, Holland ought to need to ascend to the visible level in order to leave. There are no other apparent points of entry.

"And the monster?"

L sucks in a deep breath.

"We must presume that he is indeed controlling it, so therefore, it will not attack anyone who is holding him hostage," he states quietly. "If, for example, I manage to take him hostage, you ought to point your own gun at the creature, just to be safe."

"We're actually going to see its face," she says, sounding a little sick. "I hope these glasses work."

"No more time," L says. He despises running, and he despises guns. His deductive powers are going to be seriously damaged by the lack of hunching and the need to hold things with his entire fist.

_For Grace_.

"Let's go," he says, and they run.

* * *

Naomi kicks open the door, and L leaves her behind after that. He jumps the first and second tripwires, and goes around the third one. Once he gets past the curtains and plush couches, and into the back of the shop, he has to avoid every fifth tile or so, because they're obviously electrified.

Holland is definitely doing something untoward, and he's been expecting them.

There are alarms going off all over the place, and he can hear muffled curses and noises coming from downstairs.

The staircase is spiral and positioned exactly as predicted.

"Stop!" a voice commands over the loudspeaker. "Go no further, or I'll kill them all."

"The only people you want to kill right now is myself and my colleague," he shoots back.

He thunders down the stairs three-by-three, carefully avoiding the five that have been spread with superglue, and the two that collapse on contact. The light in the basement is glaringly florescent, and the walls are asylum-white. The place is neatly divided in two, with a scowling Bernard Holland standing in the doorway between the first and second, darkened room.

"I will kill you if you take another step!" Holland snarls. He's wearing a plastic mask – the sort one usually purchases for children at fetes and fairs – with golden cherub hair and an angelic smile.

_How predictable_.

More pressingly, on the floor and strapped to a small but sturdy chair, is Gregor Smythe. His blue eyes are wide with fear, and his face is pale, but he's obviously still alive.

"Are you a monster?" he asks L, utterly terrified.

"I work for the police," L assures him. Gregor is probably frightened of monsters.

"And _you_ are under arrest for wilful murder and deprivation of liberty," Naomi adds from right beside him.

"Oh look, you brought a _woman_ down here," Holland jeers. "It takes a true _gentleman_ to put a lady in danger. Too scared to come alone?"

"I see you are a misogynist," L says softly, and steps right over Gregor and his tiny chair, putting himself within reach of Holland. The man has already seen his face, after all. This needs to end now, one way or another.

He needs to know – _needs to know_ – what is going on out back. Because the whole room is distressingly silent, and if he's keeping the other children somewhere, then…

They should be making _some_ sort of noise, right?

Maybe he's just gagged them.

"There are cuts on Gregor's arms," Naomi says carefully. "Like…little bite marks."

"I know," L says.

"See, the reason I'm trying to _do_ this," Holland says, with the dramatic air of the misunderstood, "is to rid the world of _scum like you_."

"You are delusional," L replies, taking one step forward.

"I am _god_!" Holland howls at him, and touches the worm-head pendant around his neck. "Kill them both!"

The gorgon materialises right next to Gregor, who flinches and screams. It raises it's head and looks straight at L.

L stares at it with fascination. A tattered, inky-grey robe covers most of its body. Its hands are human-shaped, but its flesh is fetid and pale, and reminds L of the bags under his own eyes.

But the face…the face really bothers him. Beneath its hood is a fairly young-looking, almost elfin face, with huge dark eyes that resemble L's own. Its hair coils and twists around seemingly independently of the creature itself. L realises that every tendril is actually a blind, fanged earthworm.

_Ah. The worms_.

"Hello monster," L says softly.

It groans softly. L suspects it isn't actually capable of human speech.

"What?" Holland spits. "What is this? _Why aren't you changing_?"

The creature's eyes widen, and it garbles something unintelligible and glances at the nearest twirling worm. L realises with a jolt that it ends in nothing but an empty tube. No head.

Worm's-head pendant.

_I understand_.

The creature turns around to face Naomi while Holland curses loudly and grabs him with beefy hands.

"You won't get away with this," he screams, slamming L up against the wall. "I'll kill you both for standing in my way. Heathens!"

The creature murmurs something, possibly in dissent.

"Shut up!" Holland snaps. "Get the rifle!"

It flies across the room in a blur of motion, impossibly fast. L twists his arms out of Holland's grip and kicks him in the chin in one fluid motion. The man doubles over, and L grabs the chain at the back of his neck and deftly tugs it over his head.

The gorgon comes back into focus, makes an angry high-pitched noise in Holland's general direction, seizes the chair with small child still attached, and disappears.

"No!" Naomi cries, reaching out a second too late. "Gregor!"

"Too late," L warns her, shoving past Holland into the second room. "Grace! _Grace_!"

There is nothing. Not the muffled sounds of a gagged prisoner, not the movement of feet against shackles, nothing at all.

L takes a flashlight from his back pocket and switches it on.

Cages line the wall, each one stretching from floor to ceiling, large enough to fit a small child. There are seven of them, all completely empty. There is nothing along the far wall, but L can make out a faint line that might indicate some sort of second, underground exit.

"My pendant!" Holland roars from the next room. "GIVE ME BACK MY SOLDIER, YOU HEATHEN!"

"Don't you dare move!" Naomi says firmly. "L? We need to go."

L turns the beam of the flashlight to the other wall. And there, a few metres from where he stands, is a collection of half-sized statues. Children.

Nine of them.

"No," he says softly.

They've been dumped here. Most have toppled over or been piled on top of each other like ordinary garbage. The faces he can make out are distorted in terror or decorated with tiny stone tears. All of them have bite marks on their arms identical to Gregor's own injuries.

Nine is too many.

"I _said_ don't move!"

"Fuck you, you stupid bitch," Holland says, and a second later L is grabbed and shoved up against a wall.

"What have you done?" he whispers. "What have you done, Holland?"

"I wouldn't _have_ to do this if people would just _accept _me," he spits. "It's _your_ fault, officer! Gods oughtn't need to prove who they are!"

"A true god wouldn't have needed to do something like this," L mutters.

"Let him go," Naomi commands. L can barely hear her over the roar inside his own head.

"Give me back the pendant!" Holland says. L thinks he might be shouting, but it's hard to tell. "Give it to me, and I'll release your friend."

"Release my colleague, or I'll shoot you," Naomi counters

L stares at Holland.

"You killed them all," he whispers. He doesn't care. He doesn't care if Holland gets shot, if Holland strangles him, if he's about to die. He doesn't care about any of it. He clenches his fist tightly around the glass-encased worm-head. The motion makes strange muscles hurt in his hand.

There are nine. Nine.

There is no way to undo what Holland has done.

L attempts to kick him again, half-hearted and distracted, and Holland jams his knee between their torsos and drives his hand right into L's face.

L feels the pain explode inside his skull like it belongs to someone else, like he's watching it on a television screen. He's trained to deal with pain.

He has never trained himself to deal with sudden loss of depth perception. The world shifts and alters slightly, Holland grabs his hand, and Naomi pulls the trigger, all at once.

She gets Holland in the forearm, which L thinks is about the same spot Matsuda once shot Light. Holland yells in pain, but yanks the pendant from his hand all the same. He presses something inside his pocket and a door slides open in the back wall.

There's glass in L's eye, and nine little statues at his feet. Holland bolts, and he grabs at empty air. Naomi runs after him, and the door slams shut in her face.

"God_damnit_!" she screams, impossibly angry. So angry. It's contagious. L feels his fingers curl as he sags against the wall.

Naomi shoves at the door, but it's sealed perfectly into the wall, no handles, barely any seam. L drops to his knees and crawls. He never crawls. He sorts through the statues – oblivious freckle-faced toddler, dead-eyed Asian girl, cowering three-year-old boy – until he finds her. Five-year-old girl. Curly dark hair and brown eyes.

Well, not any more. Stone hair. Stone eyes. Stone frown. Forever immortal, forever gone.

Naomi is rattling at the wall, and talking loudly on her phone at the same time. One of the others has come, but he doesn't look around to see who it is.

L hunches over and presses his forehead to Grace's.

"I'm sorry," he says, so very, very quietly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"No," says the newcomer, voice gruff with denial. "What have you done? What have you _done_?"

_Rae_.

"I said I'd save her," L tells it, as if it cares what he thinks. "I said I would, and I didn't."

"I will kill you!" Rae wails. "I'll kill you for this!"

"Yes," L says. He doesn't care what Naomi thinks of his behaviour right now. He can feel his own rage bubbling up behind the grief. He can feel that unstoppable, overwhelming _fury_ that he hasn't allowed himself to feel since he was six years old.

There's blood trickling down his left cheek. It isn't Holland's.

"Call M," he instructs Naomi. "We need to find out where he's heading."

Naomi regards him for a moment, holding her phone halfway to her ear. Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy.

"It's her, isn't it?"

"Yes."

The last time he got truly angry – as angry as he could possibly be – he put someone in the electric chair.

Last time it was a six-year-old boy. This time it's a five-year-old girl.

He needs to hold himself down. He needs to fight this. He needs to hang onto the grief.

Or there will be more than one monster unleashed on the world tonight.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you to everyone who reads this. those of you who are reviewing, thank you most of all. I'm trying to respond to reviews through PMs now, so let me know if you don't want this to happen to yours.

+ much love to my real-life beta, who tirelessly puts up with me dumping 10k of words in her lap every week and demanding she turn my drivel into something semi grammatically correct.


	21. Brown

notes/warnings

+ my apologies for this being so very late.

+ I think I should just make swearing a permanent warning for this fic.

+ do I need to warn for injury? it's not exactly gory or detailed, but it is there. consider yourself warned.

music: _any day now_, by missy higgins.

* * *

**Brown**

Raye and Watari spend the night driving around the city, looking for Holland. Mail hacks into all of the public and airline transport systems, searching for suspicious movements.

"He will travel, now," L informs them with certainty. "He was almost caught. He needs to move interstate, at the very least. It is more likely that he will flee the country."

"Are we going to tell the police what we found at his work?" Naomi asks cautiously. "They are going to want the search the place, you know."

"I had Watari take care of everything," L replies simply. "There will be no…untoward evidence for them to find."

"So those kids don't ever get a proper funeral or anything?" Naomi enquires sharply, raising her voice a little.

L glares at her.

"It is more important to prevent public panic," he says curtly. "And to protect future victims."

"Even so, I wish we knew what happened to Gregor," she mutters, shaking her head. "This whole thing is just…sick."

L has not removed his sunglasses. He doesn't have time to deal with his own injury. He has two computer screens in front of him, and he's working in tandem with Mail. Naomi is _supposed _to be liasing with police.

Rae is screaming at him, but that's nothing that he cannot handle.

He doesn't just want justice any more, not this time. He wants Holland to _pay._ His heart drums against his chest, and his pulse roars inside his ears. Fury coarses through his veins, buzzing at his fingertips, driving him forward, making him invincible.

_Thump, thump, thump._

He remembers this feeling. He remembers what it did to him. What he became.

Right now, he's the most dangerous man in the world.

But he's hiding it well. Of course.

Mail slams his palm against the desk.

"Bernard Holland boarded a flight to Washington half an hour ago," he announces, matter-of-factly. "He didn't even use a particularly realistic fake ID. He must be in an incredible hurry."

"Just him? No child?" Naomi probes.

L seizes his mobile from the coffee table, and swiftly dials Watari.

"Get back to base," he orders. "We're taking the jet."

* * *

"I'm serious. This guy actually thought he could replicate his gorgon by having it _bite_ the children."

Raye is tired, hungry, pissed off, and desperately in need of a shower. He's been chasing worms and monsters around the city all day, the main suspect has escaped, and they haven't managed to save a single child. Now he's stuck on a goddamn plane headed to the United States, in order to capture and confront a murderer who will quite possibly kill them all.

Sometimes he really _hates_ his boss.

"I can't believe you actually _saw_ this thing," he tells Naomi. "Anyway, biting to make babies? Isn't that _vampire_ lore?"

"You're telling me," she replies, taking a sip of her iced tea. "Of course, we don't know whether Holland is just delusional, or if gorgons really _do_ reproduce that way. Either way, we know they haven't had any success yet."

"Such reproduction would be evolutionarily unsound," L comments from his recliner.

"Which might explain why there aren't more gorgons running around the place," Raye says thoughtfully.

He isn't the only one who's exhausted by this case. Naomi keeps nodding off mid-conversation, and Mail's typing speed has decreased by at least two keystrokes per minute.

Even L's own behaviour is strange. It seems to be almost physical, as if he's moving differently. Or maybe it's the fact that he's wearing sunglasses indoors. Or the way he seems to be gripping objects more tightly than usual. Raye cannot precisely define the change, but it bothers him all the same.

L is their rock. He is not supposed to be emotionally altered by cases.

"If they are immortal, why would they reproduce at all?" Mail asks.

"Supernatural is not the same as immortal," L tells him calmly. His voice is almost excessively fragile, as if he's trying to conceal some other emotion. "If any of the presently published literature on mythical creatures is correct, gorgons are quite mortal. They seem to have very few natural defences other than their eyes."

"And apparently, moving really fuckin' fast."

"Yes, that too."

Naomi props her chin in her hand, possibly because she doesn't have the strength to hold it up unassisted any longer.

"Well, I'm a good shot, if I do say so myself, and Raye is an _excellent_ shot, but there's no way either of us are going to be able to hit this thing if it's moving."

"It will need to stop moving if Holland intends for it to make eye contact with people," L counters. He rubs vigorously at the left side of his face. "And there is an eighty-nine percent chance that his present plans consist of exactly that."

"So we bait it and then kill it?" Raye asks, still flushing a little from Naomi's comment. "You're going to sacrifice more innocent children?"

"Even if we're prepared to do that," Mail monotones, "we're gonna have to find the bastard first. According to my software, Holland will beat us to the United States by approximately fifty-two minutes, even if we maintain maximum speed for the rest of the journey."

"Yes," L says softly. Our plan must first involve drawing Holland out of hiding, and then incapacitating him and destroying his monster. All of this must occur as soon as possible."

"Do we have to kill the monster?" Naomi asks. "I mean, we don't even know that it's done anything wrong."

Raye stares at his wife in horror.

"It turns people to _stone_," he sputters. "Even…look, even if it doesn't have the inclination to do that on its own, if we leave it in peace, some other nutter will just find it and we'll have this whole damn catastrophe happening all _over_ again."

"So now we're killing potentially innocent creatures because they _might_ be used as weapons?" she argues hotly.

"It is likely that we will have to kill the creature," L says with finality. "If it seems to be excessively benevolent, and does not try to obstruct Holland's capture, we may be able to find a facility that will allow us to examine its behaviour and determine whether it truly is a threat to society. However, such a scenario is unlikely to occur."

"I just think that it's barbaric. Not to mention wasteful. How can we be sure the gorgon cannot be used harmoniously, to benefit society?"

"Really," Raye scoffs. "_I'm_ more concerned about the children than the _thing_ that's killing them, to be honest. Anyway, what is your great plan, L?"

"Simple," L replies. "Children are not the only thing Holland wishes to find. We know that he has an ego the size of Li-... the size of a small planet. Which means he would _love_ to defeat the man who is fronting this entire investigation."

"Wouldn't that be...you?" Raye asks, frowning.

"Precisely. By my estimation, Holland would be unable to resist an opportunity to expose me to the world. If he hears on national news that L is saying he confronted Holland at his workplace in Brisbane, Holland will realise he knows my face. Doubtlessly, he will attempt to blackmail me by threatening to show my face to the world. The only way he can blackmail me and remain anonymous is to broadcast his message to the entire world. Therefore, there will subsequently be a ninety-two percent chance that he will approach either a national newspaper, or an international radio station or television channel. There are only five buildings that fit these criteria in Washington."

"Wow," Raye says, both dazed and impressed. "That's...wow. So all we need to do is divide ourselves and the Washington police up between those five buildings, and we'll be all set."

"I am drafting my press release as we speak," L says. "The Washington police are prepared to cooperate with us."

"That is the _worst_ plan I've ever heard," Naomi snaps. Raye blinks at her.

"Why?"

"Why? Because no matter what happens, Holland is going to be in a position where he both has a vendetta against you, and _knows what you look like_. There is no death penalty in the American legal system. Even if he is arrested and put into solitary confinement, he will still be given the opportunity to speak to prison guards, solicitors, visitors, and probably other people too. I _know_ Mail's profile suggests Holland can sketch pretty well. L, he'll end you."

"Yeah, that's right," Raye agrees slowly. "We can't do that."

"We need to apprehend Holland as soon as possible, by whatever means possible," L tells them sternly.

_Jesus Christ, he's back to this shit again?_

"We're not sacrificing _you_!" Naomi informs him. She sounds absolutely scandalised.

"Sacrifice is part of being a detective," L tells them primly. "We all ought to be prepared to put our lives on the line."

"You're not sacrificing my wife!" Raye bellows. "Or anyone _else_, for that matter!"

"Eh, I've told him that he can sacrifice _me_ any time he wants," Mail says casually.

"You shut up!" Raye yells at him. "You're not even mentally stable!"

Mail actually stops typing and turns to glower at him. It occurs to Raye that maybe no-one has ever actually _said_ that to his face before.

"I don't need you to protect me," Naomi informs him coldly. "And _you_ need to think of another plan, L. We've invested our lives in you. You aren't throwing this away so easily."

"You will listen to me," L says quietly. "You will listen to me, unless you choose to leave. You can leave whenever you like, Naomi Penber."

Raye holds his breath. If...if Naomi chose to leave, they could be free of all this. They could have a normal life, with him working a day job and her at home with the kids and cats and gingham tablecloths and home-cooked meals, and...

"I'm not leaving," Naomi barks. "And _you_ aren't...holy _fuck_!"

"Hypocrite," Mail murmurs, still staring at both of them intently. Raye ignores him in favour of trying to work out what the hell is bothering his wife so much.

She's pointing at L's face, and her outstretched finger is trembling in the air. There's the tiniest drop of blood on his left cheek, in the same place he'd been rubbing, earlier. The red stain contrasts starkly against his pale skin.

"Blood?" Raye asks, immediately concerned. "Are you injured, L?"

"Please pay that no mind," L says politely, swiping at the offending mark. "You both have work to do."

Naomi's face is so white that it's verging on green.

"Take off your glasses," she demands.

"Glasses?" Raye queries. He isn't really sure where she's going with this, or what's happened to L.

"I said," L enunciates, "please return to your research, N."

Naomi gets to her feet, and strides over to where L sits, her high-heeled boots clicking briskly across the floor. Her face is tired and pale, but her expression is impossibly intimidating.

Then again, Mail is intimidating most of the time, and he's so tired and pale he's practically dead.

And there's another odd thing. Raye _isn't_ particularly scared of him today. In fact, today he's feeling brave enough that he'd quite like to call the little brat out on being eternally depressed, lazy, and bothersome. It's always bothered Raye just how much Mail gets away with. He wouldn't mind having that fight.

Their whole group has been a little fucked up by Holland.

_When something is wrong with the foundations, something is wrong with the whole building_, Raye thinks sagely.

And right now, their foundation is...

"Holy fuck, is he bleeding from his _eye_?" Raye demands.

* * *

"Holland shoved your glasses into your face," Naomi breathes. "Hell. I didn't even think of that at the time."

L doesn't flinch away from her, even though she is standing within an arm's reach of him. She won't try to grab him.

He's sixty-seven percent certain.

"That is irrelevant right now," he assures her.

It isn't. It is definitely not irrelevant. His world is flat and slightly fuzzy around the edges. He is impaired. The depth of penetration of the glass shard is thirteen millimetres.

Too far. The damage is permanent.

And he's angry. Oh god, he is angry.

_Thump, thump, thump._

The plan is risky, he cannot deny that. But he is furious, and he's lost an eye, and he'll make whatever decisions he damn well needs to make to win.

Because he's L, that's why.

Naomi raises her right hand, like she wants to just yank the glasses off him. L brandishes his forearm across his face, an obvious warning.

Rae is standing on the opposite side of the room, glaring at him with the most absolute and exquisite hatred L has ever witnessed. The Shinigami's eyes are beyond terrible; death and torture and heart-attacks and utter, utter disgust.

It has finished screaming about how it is going to kill him. Now it seems to be simply waiting for the opportunity.

L isn't sure whether he appreciates the silence. No one else seems to miss Grace the way he does.

He explained about the gorgon, but Rae has refused to offer any sort of helpful advice, and L thinks maybe it downright just doesn't believe him.

"For the love of god," Naomi says, sounding both panicked and disgusted. "There's _glass_ in your eye."

"That is not important right now."

"Can you even _see_ out of it?" she demands.

"I assure you my vision will not impair the remainder of this mission, or any future missions," L hisses.

Why can she not just do as he says?

_Thump._

Why do they always, always have to fight him? He has lost his _eye_ and he is sacrificing his reputation and Grace is dead and no matter what, a monster is going to kill him in the end. Surely his own employees could at least _pretend_ to comply with his wishes.

He hates them. He hates all of them. So angry.

His rage is interfering with his deductive powers.

"Shit!" Raye exclaims. "Shit, you need help. I'll go and swap with Watari. I can pilot this aircraft. I will-"

"We do not need Watari," L says icily. "Please return to your work."

"It's going to cause more damage if you leave it in there," Naomi argues. "I shouldn't have to _tell_ you this."

"And if it gets infected, it's going to spread to your-"

"N," L spits. "R. That is enough!"

He wants to kick someone in the face.

_Thump, thump. _

He needs the roar to stop. He cannot _think_.

"No!" Naomi says obstinately, folding her arms. "Geeze, L. Let us help you. We're all in this together."

He has had enough.

"If you cannot bear to work with me and _not_ interfere with my person, then please do go and see Watari, and inform him of your joint resignation."

Naomi gapes at him, and he realises uncomfortably that her eyes are damp and glistening. He has threatened her with the same thing two times in as many minutes.

Perhaps he is simply getting old.

"Fuck you," she says darkly.

"That's twice," Mail informs her, voice blank and indifferent. L despises the fact that Raye's comment has actually managed to _bother_ the young man. No-one should ever make Mail's life more difficult than it already is. No matter what.

L watches as Naomi mouths the words '_holy shit_' at her husband before she beats a slow and uncomfortable retreat back to her seat. L turns his head so he appears to be looking at his laptop screen once more, but behind his sunglasses, he keeps a close eye on both of the Penbers.

"I hope your eye _hurts_," Rae says vindictively, without actually glancing in his direction.

L deletes a few choice words and adds several more, editing his press release so that it sounds more convincingly like something written by a genius-who-isn't-quite-as-smart-as-Holland.

Which is practically the truth, really.

Someone grabs a handful of his hair and hauls him bodily off his feet and backwards until the back of his chair is crushing against his cervical spine, and he's staring at the ceiling.

It is not an entirely unexpected situation.

"You. Man. Get the butler guy," Mail orders gruffly.

He does not release his painfully tight grip on L's hair, and L does not resist. Raye and Naomi are staring at them with wide eyes and identical expressions of shock.

"Er...right," Raye replies. He seems happy for an excuse to leave the room.

He doesn't want his eye treated and he doesn't want to be pushed into submission, ignored, demoted, not even for a moment.

He wants to snap Mail's fucking neck and he could - his arms are not pinned down and he has a longer reach than the younger man - but he can't because this is his fucking _baby_ and L has to protect him until one of them is dead.

Because he did _such_ a good job of protecting Matsuda and Grace, didn't he?

He wants to go. He wants to leave his team and the whole stupid concept of not fighting alone and take down Holland alone even if it kills him. He's the edge of a knife - so dangerous, so very dangerous - and he's not sure exactly how much he trusts himself any more.

Mail hangs over him, as flat and lifeless-looking as everything else L can see. He reeks of cigarettes and body odour, and the bones in his hand are digging into L's scalp.

"Don't you fucking leave me," Mail says, and the expression on his waxy face is both crazed and terrified. "Don't you dare die as well."

L hesitates for a moment, because he's about to promise something of which there is no certainty. But he has always been good at lying, and that is never going to change.

"Okay," he says softly.

_Do you not have any idea what I am becoming, my son?_

_You ought to be begging me to sacrifice myself_.

Because there's a part of his plan that he does not intend to share. Holland is impeccably smart and unimaginably evil. And now someone L cared for is dead, and L is impossibly angry.

It's the Shyster all over again.

He knows. He knows right now. He's going to kill Holland the first chance he gets, evidence or not, and nothing is going to stop him.

* * *

"What bothers me the most," Rae pronounces damningly, "is the fact that you don't _care_. You haven't even grieved for her. I...no, I'm wasting my time, aren't I? I'll just kill you when we're done. You probably won't even understand why."

It is speaking as if it genuinely believes that he is irreversibly corrupt and irrevocably evil. Perhaps it does.

"When I'm king," it adds softly, "the first thing I'll do is get rid of people like you."

It's eyes are burning cherry red, burning up with hatred. With loathing. With pity, maybe.

All for him.

_You have every right to blame me, _L thinks._ She was in my charge._

But he can't handle that, can he? He can never handle being the bad guy, being the one who did the wrong thing and screwed up someone else's life. He always pretends it would have happened anyway.

Watari steps into the cabin, and proceeds to politely and methodically extract all of the glass from L's eye, while Mail holds him still.

Perhaps L ought to have killed Holland using the note. Has he been wrong, to always disregard Rae's advice solely on the basis that it was _Rae's_ advice? Has he missed the most important opportunity in the world, because he was and is too weak to trust himself with such a powerful weapon?

Would it have been worth it, to save Grace?

"I'm sorry," he mutters, and he knows the Shinigami can hear him.

It just doesn't care.

* * *

Watari surveys the damage, cleans up the blood, and places some antibiotic drops inside L's eyelids. He then performs a series of standardised vision tests.

"I already know," L says irritably, when he hears the old man catch his breath. "It is beyond repair."

"Hell," Naomi whispers.

"But he's not going to die," Mail asks quickly. "Right?"

"He will certainly live," Watari murmurs, and touches the top of L's head. "Reconstructive surgery, perhaps?"

L blinks at him.

"My retina is not damaged?"

Watari seems to be the very picture of serenity, but L can see the way his fingertips are twitching, tiny involuntary movements. He is worried.

"Everything is...damaged, L."

"Exactly as I estimated," L says with a businesslike nod that just makes Mail tug harder on his hair. "I have been successfully impaired."

_Thump._

"Prosthetics are improving every day," Naomi says doubtfully.

"I have already done my research into this, thank you," L replies curtly. "Do you honestly think it takes me half an hour to compile a press release? Not all parts of the eye can be replaced, not even with experimental surgery. There is nothing that can be done. And now, we must proceed with the plan."

"What, the plan that involves you never being able to leave base again?" Naomi demands.

"I no longer have powers of depth perception," L reasons. He accepts a soft gauze eye-patch from his handler and ties it over his own head.

He cannot help thinking about what Grace would say if she were still alive right now. She might call him a pirate.

He's never wanted to be a pirate in his life.

"Right, which means you are now somehow completely incapable of ever solving another case again, so it's okay to throw your career down the toilet with this one?"

L glares at her with his good eye. Watari goes to relieve Raye of his temporary pilot duties.

"We must stop Holland at all costs," L says simply. "No matter what."

Naomi rolls her eyes and hits her head against her open palm. Mail releases his grip on L's hair, slouches across the room, and folds back into his previous position against the wall.

"This debate is over," L says succinctly.

"_This_ is because you still see Holland as a newer version of Light," Naomi says accusingly.

"Why am I not surprised?" her husband mutters, plopping himself down next to Mail. "Ugh. I hate flying planes. I can never seem to get a good handle on the steering."

"You are incorrect," L informs Naomi untruthfully.

"She's _not_ incorrect," Raye says smugly.

"And _I'm_ not unstable," Mail snaps. L hesitates, gazing at the younger man.

_Do you honestly not know? Can you not see yourself, Matt?_

_How could you not know?_

"Please," L requests softly. "Please, not now, M."

"Do _you_ think I'm-"

"Ssh."

"Don't you be shushing anybody," Naomi scolds. "I don't like this plan and I'm not about to accept it. We need to modify it."

"My word is final," L declares.

"What, so you just hired me for my good looks? Because I was certain you actually wanted a fellow _detective_. With independent _opinions_."

"That is true in certain circumstances," L agrees, his patience rapidly wearing thin. "However, right now all I need is a reliable employee."

"I'm _not_ unstable!" Mail protests again, oblivious to the rest of the argument.

"You're being ridiculous," Naomi says with finality.

"I am being decisive," L counters loudly. Raising his voice makes his throat hurt, but he ignores that too.

"_You_," Naomi sputters, "are a-"

"_You have a fucking right to grieve for the people you love, don't you_?" Mail screams.

"Don't bother, kid," Rae replies distantly. "This guy isn't even capable of _caring_ for another human being. Or anything else, for that matter. I feel sorry for you."

"Is he going to have another meltdown and try to set things on fire?" Raye hisses. "Because that will end badly for all of us."

Mail gets to his feet and punches Raye in the eye.

"Don't you fuckin' _dare_-"

"Ow! Hey!"

"_Boys!_" Naomi says sharply. "Stop it! _Stop it! _This isn't _helping_! L wants to sacrifice his entire identity, and we're all just going to...I said _stop!_"

Mail is attempting to kill her husband, and Raye is attempting to survive being strangled by someone who probably weighs as much as one of his legs.

L stares at the three of them, blinking rapidly.

"Setting fire to things," he echoes, voice hollow.

He hasn't been thinking this through properly. He's missed that perfect, elusive balance of emotion and logic - quite spectacularly - yet again.

"Yeah, try and catch up," Raye gasps. "He's moved on to choking people now."

"You've never had to be alone. You've _always_ been with your wife, you prick!"

"Yeah, and at least she loves me _back_!"

Silence descends rapidly. Mail's hands drop limply to his sides, and he gets to his feet and shuffles away from Raye. His eyes are dead, broken apart, shattered.

_We can protect all of these children. We can._

"I can't _believe_ you just said that," Naomi snarls at Raye.

Mail keeps moving until his back hits the wall, and then he curls up, almost reflexively, into a ball.

"The library," L muses.

"Jesus, what have you done?"

"What have _I_ done?" Raye protests. "Honey, he was trying to kill me."

_We can pull Holland out of hiding with an even bigger drawcard than myself, _L realises dreamily.

_Everyone else._

Mail pulls the crucifix from his neck and hurls it against the wall. It bounces back into his lap.

"I don't care," he says quietly. "I don't care if he never speaks to me again. I just want him back."

_Because he'll go where the children are._

"It's okay," Naomi says awkwardly. "Raye didn't mean it."

"Never mind any of that," L interrupts briskly. "All of you, stop arguing. We are going to protect the residents of Washington, and we are going to have Holland arrested."

"For the last _time_," Naomi says exasperatedly. "We are not sacrificing you!"

"For the first time," L replies steadily. "We will not have to."

This finally seems to earn him the silent, dedicated attention he's been seeking. He pulls himself back into a squat and smiles.

"Listen," he says softly. "This is what I need you all to do."

He's found a solution, and it hasn't quelled his rage one bit.

* * *

The first thing Bernard Holland needs is a base. Because he needs to give his creature a damn good scolding, and remind it of where it belongs. Then, he needs to locate a paediatric clinic and get himself a list of suitable candidates.

And then, well, he'll start working tirelessly towards making this world - _his _world - a better place once more. Oh, L and the big-cheese police officials will eventually track him here, but he knows he's a difficult person to find, and Washington is a big, big city.

Still, those ridiculous police officers found his base, and they called him by name. He'll be a wanted man before long.

Time to up the ante, so to speak. He needs to attempt conversion on many children at once. Now is the time for volume, not discretion. Soon he will reveal himself as god, and as commander of a mighty army. It will not matter who opposes him.

He will crush them all.

Besides, his sister has always been particularly accommodating, and he knows from recent emails that she has a nice, big, mostly-disused investment property on the west side of town. It will take L and his crew a while to locate it.

Perfect.

He purchases a car without any problems at all, and drives safely to his destination without needing to use his creature on anyone.

_Excellent. The non-believers haven't raised the alarm._

He has his laptop in his bag, and sets it up on the dusty kitchen counter. A few minutes of searching finds him not one, but _three_ suitable medical institutions, totalling no less than two hundred and eight eligible children.

Gorgons reproduce by biting other creatures using their hair-worms. He made his creature detail the exact procedure. All he needs now are the hosts.

These children will be cherished. They will be raised up and canonised and revered. They will be his beloved angels, his heavenly battalion, his glorious right-hand men. And those children that perished, perished for their Lord God. He shall see that they are bountifully rewarded.

Because it doesn't always work, this biting thing. Often times, the host simply dies. And his gorgon seems to be particularly unsuccessful at breeding.

His gorgon. The cursed newspapers are calling it an 'ungodly creature'. Perhaps it was, before it met him. Now it is divine.

"All of these children are sufficiently convinced of the existence of monsters," he announces. "Is there anything else I can do to make them more likely to survive?"

He needs to speak aloud, as it does not know what he is thinking. But _he_ can read _its_ mind, and though its thoughts are often slow and half-formed, he can always make sense of its intentions.

This gorgon was _meant_ for him.

_Don't know_.

"You always say that, damnit," Holland snarls. "_Answer_ me. What do you look for in potential offspring?"

_Don't know._

"I will hurt you if you say that again," Holland threatens, voice low and angry. "Believe me. I will."

It fights him, sometimes. It is obstinate and annoying. He will kill it off, once his army is large.

_Don't know! Never have_.

"What, you've never tried to create others of your kind?"

_No._

Holland folds his arms crossly. It cannot lie to him.

"Well, what about your parents? How did they make you? Have you had brothers or sisters?"

The gorgon pauses for a long time. Even its hair - ever coiling and squirming - seems to still.

_No others. Only me_.

"Curse you," Holland breathes, and slams his fist down on the counter. "_Curse_ you. If this is true, then _how did you know how to reproduce_?"

_Old mistress_.

Ah, yes. Someone had controlled the gorgon at some point before it had come to him. Holland doesn't know who, or why, or for how long. What he does know is that she seemed to be a witch of considerable power and knowledge, who taught his creature a lot of important things.

"Well, she hasn't been wrong about anything so far," he concedes gruffly. He goes back to ignoring it, and it returns to its usual internal monologue, which has recently changed from _hate you, hate you, hate you_ to this.

_Not ungodly why ungodly close to god close to god not ungodly._

He hides the car, locks the doors, and checks all of the windows. Then, finally, he feels safe enough to send his creature from his side, so that it can steal the relevant medical files. After it leaves, he settles onto one of the luxurious couches and allows himself to relax.

After a while, he decides to switch on the television.

"..._in light of the recent serial killer that is suspected to have relocated to Washington in the past few hours, the authorities have gathered all members of the Washington public together, for their own protection._"

Holland sits up rapidly, scarcely able to believe his blessed ears.

Everyone. Together. The whole city. The police. L's taskforce, surely. All together. In one place. And, better yet, no one seems to be wearing sunglasses or any sort of protective eyewear.

It's almost too good to be true.

* * *

Packing an entire city's worth of parents and children into one building is a difficult task, but it's made easier by the combined fear and respect of the citizens involved. More recent cases have made L a fairly popular crime-fighter in the United States, and the police are grateful to have him on board and eager to follow his instruction.

No one questions the patch over his eye. Mostly because it's half-hidden under his sunglasses anyway. Watari has updated his prototype models and carefully removed all sharp edges. No-one else should sustain any glasses-related injuries.

"You know, I'm not overly happy about this," Minnie grumbles, folding her arms over her chest. She is the head librarian at the Tracking Library. She's also the only person L's ever seen working here.

Surely she can't be running the place all on her own.

"Sorry," L says, feeling as if some sort of token apology is expected. "It is for the greater good, however."

"It's still _my_ library."

"It's a government-funded building, isn't it?" Raye asks curiously. Minnie - L thinks her real name is Jasmine - rolls her eyes.

"You are obstructing me from doing my job," she says curtly, pointing one finger in their general direction. "Apparently I can't stop you from filling my workplace up with half the population of the city, but don't expect me to _like_ it."

"I understand," L murmurs. "Now please, go back inside. Believe me when I tell you that it is not safe to be out here."

He and his team are positioned close to the library's entrance. The steadily-growing crowd of evacuees – comprising mostly of frightened parents and irritable children – stops a few feet short of where they stand. The people closest to the entrance are keeping their backs turned, as instructed. There are also a few dozen officers present, working as crowd-control and backup.

Everyone ought to be safe.

"I still don't understand why you think this will work," Naomi complains, for the sixth time. "_Why_ do you say that monsters cannot enter the tracking library?"

"Because it is true," L says, with a tiny smile. Rae is floating silently around outside, stopping every few minutes to glare at him with its godawful eyes.

"How could you possibly _know_ that?"

"It is classified information," L replies vaguely. "None of you are even supposed to know. Please do not speak of it so loudly."

"So it's a government secret?" Raye asks excitedly, jostling his wife. L is keeping Raye and Mail on opposite sides of the doorway. He's a little concerned for Mail's psychological health after their fight.

"Yes," Minnie hisses, because apparently she doesn't understand the phrase 'it is not safe to be out here'. "So _shut up_."

Raye flinches a little.

"All right, all right."

L raises his eyebrows. So she knows the restrictions of the library as well. Which means it really _is_ a government secret, or...or she's met a Shinigami too. And she's covering for him.

She meets his bemused expression with a lopsided grin, and wanders off to fuss at the citizens inside.

L checks his watch.

"The news story ran exactly one and a half hours ago," he announces blandly. "Holland ought to arrive very soon. Mail, please put on your glasses."

The younger man is leaning against the doorjamb, looking listless and beaten. L would sacrifice his own life in an instance, if he thought it could make Mail happy again.

"Don' want to."

"Dying won't help your case, you know."

Mail shrugs.

"Maybe if I'm turned to stone, I'll just stay dead and won't go anywhere," he replies vaguely.

The thought sends an involuntary shudder down L's spine.

_No, no. That isn't possible. Grace is somewhere else right now, with her parents. _

_And Matsuda_.

"You will not," L says, injecting as much confidence as possible into his voice. "You'll just be dead somewhere else, with no one to look after you."

Mail pulls his glasses on and goes back to slouching unhappily. They probably remind him of the goggles that he discarded years ago, alongside the rest of his identity.

He breaks L's heart.

L himself is no better, his whole body gearing up for murder, for some warped idea of justice. No, not justice. _Revenge_.

Holland is going to die.

Jasmine is also staring at Mail, and by the way his lip curls, L thinks he's staring straight back.

He did try and burn down the Tracking Library, after all. Really, it's Jasmine who ought to glare and snarl, but instead she has a morose, almost pitying expression on her face.

Like she knows.

She leaves, eventually. L checks the tiny handheld computer in his pocket. Watari's visual is online.

For such a large-scale evacuation, certain procedures must be in place to ensure the safety and security of everyone involved.

Holland ought to not think it strange that the grounds surrounding the library have been sanctioned off for a few kilometres in every direction. Nor should he be suspicious of the fact that there is only one entry point, through which vehicles and pedestrians alike must pass one-at-a-time.

He will be in disguise, of course, probably unrecognisable. But Watari has a new kind of audio tap, better than ever before, and Holland is hardly going to suspect there is one inserted into every single parking permit card that is handed out.

A plain-clothes police officer is working with Watari, making note of which licence plate goes with which tap.

It will not be solid evidence, but it will be something.

The only question remains as to how soon he will show up. Theoretically, they may be waiting for a few days, even. But there is a sixty-five percent chance that Holland will act quickly. He knows L knows his name. He'll be panicking. He'll be pulling out the big guns.

It's been long enough.

"Raye," he says softly. "It's time."

The rest of them move away from the doorway, out of sight.

There is nothing left to do but wait.

* * *

In order to control a gorgon, two rules must be considered. One, the creature cannot be more than one and a half metric kilometres from where he is, or it will be automatically freed. And two, he must always _want_ to control it.

If L has had contact with the officers – or detectives, or whatever they were – who broke into his place of work, then he possibly has some idea as to the latter rule. But it's unlikely that he's been able to estimate the former. Holland has always been careful to vary the distance between himself and the scene of crime.

Besides, L knows he's here, and L is frightened. Frightened enough that he's rounding up all the citizens and trying to guard them with _police_. Obviously he's not expecting to Holland show up, right here.

The man on the gate doesn't even question whether or not he has a child, but Holland spins him some story about his wife and twins already waiting inside the library, just in case.

So easy.

Holland pulls over a little out of the way. The parking grounds around the library don't seem to be particularly patrolled or well-monitored.

"I wonder if L knows his evacuation made the news?" he says jovially. "Surely he wouldn't want me to know about this place."

_Hope they catch you._

"Then they'd kill you," Holland counters. "Do you want to die, all alone?"

It stares right at him, with this hollow, accusing expression on its face.

The third rule is that a gorgon cannot harm someone who is controlling it. He can look right into its wide, childlike eyes without being turned to stone.

"You ought to be thanking me, really," he continues happily.

_Hate you. You're just like…_

It doesn't finish, just stares at the cheap carpet on the passenger-side floor. Holland smiles, and lowers his chair until he can comfortably hunch out of view of anyone looking through the window. He's already worked out which route it ought to take.

_What have I done?_

"Exactly what you've been told," Holland informs it, ignoring its horrified tone. "Now, off you go. The names of the children are Susan Lane, Rhea Cramb, and Bourke McIver. You've been studying the photographs?"

_Yes_.

"Good. Then go."

It disappears from the seat in a flurry of grey. Holland leans back against the plush headrest of his hired car. Everything is falling into place beautifully. Ever since that gorgon came to him – _chose_ him, even, or no, was _gifted_ to him – his life has been amazing, and he knows exactly where he ought to be.

The only way for a god to move is upward.

* * *

L actually sees the gorgon when it reaches the front of the building, stares at Raye, and then attempts to get through the entrance.

It bounces off the empty air as if the doors are closed and it is completely material.

"Fascinating," L murmurs, touching his mouth.

He is squatting off to one side of the archway, next to Mail. Naomi is deeper into the building, liasing with the police officers. All three of them are positioned so that they are not visible from outside the library, instead viewing the gorgon's actions through a tiny camera mounted on the door.

The creature lifts its head and frowns. Then it moves away from the entrance and touches the wall of the library curiously.

_It's already tested all the other walls_, L thinks. _That's why it had to come here. It cannot just pass straight through._

Holland did not recognise his face when L confronted him in Paddington, which means that the gorgon cannot relay pictures to him. He'll need to come and see for himself, when he realises there's a problem.

And what he will find is Raye.

After another seven minutes of unsuccessfully attempting to enter the library, the gorgon disappears.

"All right," he says softly. "Everyone get ready. Holland ought to be here soon."

Naomi taps the side of her head in salute. Mail stares resolutely at his computer screen. L still hates the way they both look so very two-dimensional.

He's never been disabled before.

"R," he says over the intercom. "You ready?"

"Oh my god, I actually saw that thing," he replies shakily. "I thought it was going to _eat_ me."

"Yeah," a nasty voice says in the background. "You should see what's standing right behind you, then."

L flinches a little. If there's one nice thing about this particular mission, it's the fact that he's gotten to spend a few hours without having to deal with his Shinigami. It has become nothing more than a reminder of all things Grace.

And now he's not sure whether it might be correct in its judgement of him, all along.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm a professional, after all," Raye babbles. "It's just, you know. I've never even seen a death god. I'm not used to this weird crap."

He sounds positively terrified. Well, that's fine. Holland will be expecting L to be scared. After all, he thinks he's god.

Sometimes, L wonders how Light must have felt, seeing L standing dripping and defeated, out in the rain, ready to die. He thinks it must have felt amazing, like orgasm, like winning the fucking lotto. To be a criminal, and to kill – but first, to break – the greatest form of justice that ever lived.

Because back then, L was convinced he _was_ justice. Just like he was convinced he'd never lose, until that day, until he heard those bells.

Everything is different now. He touches the gun strapped to his belt. It is hard, and cold, and reassuring. The setting is inopportune. In order to shoot Holland, he'll have to give Holland a chance to shoot him.

And that's okay, too. Maybe it's time.

* * *

When Holland arrives, he is absolutely, psychotically, screamingly outraged. He's confused, he suspects he's been had, and he wants answers _right now_.

Of course, he's hiding all of that behind a fragile veneer of a jovial stride and a too-kindly smile, but even with one eye, L can see the lie.

Raye has his mobile phone pressed to his ear and plunges immediately into the conversation he's been rehearsing. L doesn't employ him for nothing, after all.

"What do you _mean_, Agent B?" he says, demanding and authoritative and uneasy all at once. "I _told_ you to enforce a block on all media. People's _lives_ are at sta… Don't you _dare_ interrupt me. I am L. You will do as I say. Shut down all media broadcasts and get me another two hundred plain-clothes officers, please."

"The monster isn't with him yet," Mail murmurs. He's right next to L, shoulder-to-shoulder, and L can feel how small and thin he has become.

"Excuse me, sir," Holland says, looking like a termite that has just discovered a particularly tasty block of wood. "Is it still okay to go inside? My wife, Mary-"

"That's fine," Raye replies haughtily, waving in the general direction of the library, phone still pressed to his ear.

Holland hesitates.

"Ah," he says simply. "So the entrance isn't closed off yet?"

Raye rolls his eyes and snaps his mobile closed.

"Look, we're in the middle of an important investigation," he huffs. "There is a very dangerous man out there somewhere, and we don't want him getting inside."

"Steve, right?" Holland says, and there's a forced tremor in his voice. But there's tension in his hands and he stands with his legs too close together and his breathing is uneven and he's blindingly furious. He's drawing attention to himself. He's giving up hiding. If the whole city is together, he only needs the one gorgon to win.

They have the evidence on record already. The conversation in his car was odd. Not enough, though. Not quite.

Holland walks up to the arch and sticks his arm through the doorway. There is, of course, no resistance.

He stands there for a moment, frowning, trying to understand. L can all but _hear_ his blood pressure rising.

He touches the gun.

_Not yet_.

The senior police sergeant approaches him. His last name is Jenkins, and L chose him because he has one stunning advantage over everyone else in the force. He is blind to anything more than three feet away from him.

"Please, sir," Jenkins says firmly. "Come inside quickly."

Holland hesitates theatrically.

"How do you know it's safer inside?" he queries.

"Because-"

"For the love of _god_, get inside," Minnie says hysterically. "Come inside so we can get the shield down. And don't look behind you!"

Holland tilts his head, stepping forward so that his whole body is in the doorway.

"Shield?"

"It's an anti-monster device," Jenkins explains. "Problem is, we have to turn it off in this archway every time another citizen comes in. Quickly now. We don't know when he'll send the monster."

"Oh," Holland says, a distinctive glint in his eye. "I see. And what about poor L out there?"

"We don't really know," Minnie says vaguely. "He works alone. I think he thinks that Steve will attack him first? Oh, how I hope he's not hurt."

"I didn't ask you to join in," L mutters. He _hates_ enthusiastic amateurs. They always have a way of messing everything up.

With one obvious exception, of course.

"I see," Holland repeats, and the act drops away, sloughs from him like skin from a snake. "I see. How…clever."

He does not move from where he stands.

"You need to move along right now," Raye orders from behind him. "We can't shut the shield with you standing there!"

Holland grins at him malevolently.

_Hallo, Light_, L thinks with a shudder.

"So, L, is it?" he asks, voice low and dangerous, because he knows he's won. "L for…Lance?"

"It's coming," Mail warns.

Raye tilts his head, acting as if the sunglasses are impairing his vision a little.

"Hold on," he says. "You're…wait. Hold on. No one let this man into the build-"

"Ha! You're so concerned with your own protection you don't even _recognise _me, heathen!" Holland roars, and he snatches the glasses from Raye's face.

"You-"

"No, you listen to me," Holland says darkly. "For too long, I've run from your empty-headed police, and your idiot detective underlings, and your Satan-worshipping colleagues. But now, I think, it's time to stop messing around. Don't you agree?"

"This man is _Steve_," Raye howls, slapping one hand over his eyes. "Agents K, X, and Y! Stop him. Get him out of the entrance."

"I'm not Steve," Holland pronounces delicately. "I'm _god_. And you are not going to stop me."

The gorgon is back, right by his side, but still distinctly outside the building.

"Go," Holland orders. "Kill them all."

It has a shotgun in one hand. Obviously intended for those few agents who have the forethought to hide their eyes.

The gorgon bumps into the empty archway again, stares at it, and then shrugs.

Holland gapes, mouth hanging open, sweat dribbling from his forehead, eyes bulging.

"I said _get inside_!" he howls. He produces a handgun from his own flowing sleeves and points it straight at Raye.

"Oh, sorry," L says loudly. "I forgot to mention that the shield is up all the time. It's just impenetrable to non-humans. Heh."

"You!" Holland says, his gun moving briskly from Raye, to L, and back again, over and over. "Let me go, or I'll kill your boss."

L nods in the general direction of his own sawn-off rifle, already directed towards Holland's heart.

"I won't shoot if you don't," he says amiably.

"You won't do that," Holland says to Raye. "You'll want to inflict your own special brand of justice. I know you, L. I've read about you."

"I'm not really L," Raye says sweetly. "Just an agent. By the way, I've already agreed to sacrifice my life rather than allow myself to be used as a hostage."

Holland looks trapped. He looks like his brain is about to explode. He looks crazy, hysterical, psychotic and murderous.

According to Matsuda, that was the way Light had looked when he was caught, too.

"You're under arrest," Jenkins tells him nervously. "For eighteen counts of murder and nine counts of kidnapping."

"So where is the legendary L?" Holland sneers. "Couldn't even be bothered to show up, huh?"

"No," L says breezily. "But he still beat you."

"Not necessarily," Holland tells him. "None of the police officers can turn around, for fear of my helper standing right outside the doorway. Now, scruffy, if I have a gun aimed at you, and you have a gun aimed at me, who shoots first?"

Naomi reaches for her own weapon.

"One more move and I'll kill him right now," Holland warns.

"Fuck," Mail whispers. "What do we do now?"

L glossed over this part of the plan. For obvious reasons. It doesn't matter if he shoots first. His willpower and superb reaction time means that he'll shoot even if he's already fatally wounded.

He takes the safety catch off his rifle.

He's angrier than Holland is.

* * *

The sudden buzz of his phone is an unwelcome distraction. Mail takes it from his jeans pocket and answers. L does not let his gaze waver from Holland's hands, not even for a moment.

"Yes?"

The person on the other end speaks for a few moments, and L starts to feel the tension, the anger, drain out of him. He's tired. He's tired and he's hungry and his head hurts and he's lost an eye and he wants safety and rest for a little while. He wants to kill Holland so this can be over. He wants to die - maybe, a little - so he can finally sleep.

"I understand," Mail says boredly, and closes the phone.

"What is it?" L asks. Holland is trying to stare him down with the horrendous manic glint in his bulging eyes.

But L is used to _Rae_. Outstaring Holland is child's play.

Everything still hangs in the balance. He hasn't fired, but he wants to, he was going to, until…

"What is it?" he asks briskly.

"They found Gregor."

"Oh no," Naomi mutters.

"Where?" L snaps.

"Outside a local police station, still tied to a chair and blindfolded," Mail replies. "He's been there a while, they just took their time identifying him."

"He is…alive?" L asks, surprised.

"Affirmative. And physically healthy, apparently."

_But…if he is alive, then that means._

L glances briefly at the gorgon still standing outside the archway. It is pressed up against the invisible wall that prevents its passage. It curls its grey lips in something not unlike a smile.

_You tried to…_

_I understand._

But he looks away for too long, and Holland fires, and all he hears is the shot and then Mail is on top of him, pressing him into the ground and backwards into the wall.

"Are you hurt?" L gasps.

"No. You?"

"No."

He doesn't think he is. He presses his forehead against the floor and breathes, one hand still wrapped around his gun. When he looks up, Holland is screaming and Raye is hitting him in the face, the pendant dangling from Raye's free hand. The monster disappears from the door and police officers swarm around Holland, and L's missed his chance. He cannot shoot. Nobody dies.

He's run out of anger.

_Safe_.

He feels half-dead from exhaustion and sugar withdrawal.

"You can't do this to me!" Holland screams. "I am _god_! Creature! Save me!"

Mail releases L, and L misses the small amount of warmth that the younger man's body still manages to generate. Raye pushes his way through the throng of police and hands the pendant to L. Minnie appears, and L really wishes she would just fuck off.

He's not even processing properly any more. Maybe that glass shard penetrated deeper than he estimated.

"How does it work?" he wonders. "I was not controlling the monster last time I held this."

Unless it was responding to some sort of subconscious desire for Gregor to be safe. But that is unlikely, he certainly could not hear its thoughts, which Holland seemed to be able to do.

Silently, L gets to his feet and shuffles through the archway. The gorgon is standing halfway across the grounds, examining something carefully.

It takes L a moment to realise that something is Rae.

"What do you want?" Rae asks sulkily. "Can you actually see me?"

The gorgon says nothing. Not even a warble as a reply. It seems to be trying to calculate something. L moves closer to them. The short green grass feels wonderful beneath his bare feet.

_It can see him, and he can see it_, L thinks. _Two supernatural creatures. I suppose gorgons cannot turn Shinigami to stone, then._

_What a pity_.

"I've read about these things before," Minnie says obnoxiously, from right behind him. "You have to _want _to control the beast for it to work."

"Well?" Rae asks. "You may have talents, but you're not exactly a god. I doubt you've come to challenge me. What do you want, peon?"

The gorgon still stares. If L had to assign a gender to it, he thinks it might be male.

Then again, why would creatures that reproduce by biting other species show any sort of sexual dimorphism? Clearly he is anthropomorphising the gorgon a little too much.

"What is it looking at?" Naomi wonders, and L realises belatedly that his whole team has followed him out here. Obviously Holland has already been subdued.

"I don't know," L lies.

"Maybe it's made an invisible friend?" Minnie jokes.

"You have no right to be here," Mail tells her. "Go back to your library, lady."

"Seriously, what is your problem?" Rae asks. "Don't you know you're about to be put down? Don't think _I'm_ going to save you. They can't even see me. Although…look, if I could save you from L, I probably would. I know what he's like."

Slowly, almost trancelike, the gorgon holds out one hand.

"_Is_ it communicating with something?" Raye wonders. "Because that is a fucking creepy thought."

Rae tilts its head.

"You want me to save you from him, huh?"

The Shinigami holds out its own bony hand, stopping just short of the gorgon's.

"Look, in a few years I'll be king," it says uncertainly. "You saved a child. I could…take you into my care, if you want."

It's missing Grace. That's all.

The gorgon reacts like it's been slapped. Its face contorts into the most ferocious snarl L has ever seen, and every single worm on its head rears up and bares teeth violently. It shrieks something indecipherable and backs away, as if Rae is both dangerous and disgusting.

_You don't care much for death gods either, huh_? L thinks. He's starting to like this gorgon. _Me neither. _

_Well, except for one._

He wishes he knew where she went. It's been a long time since he heard from her.

"Are you going to try and possess it?" Naomi asks.

"What a weird thing you are," Rae notes dismissively, and skulks off to amuse itself somewhere else.

"Look, this might not make a lot of sense," the librarian says softly, "but, I'm sorry."

"What the fuck are you sorry for?" Mail says bitingly.

"Hm. I really should go back inside and help," she replies, and turns on her heel without another word.

"Stupid bint."

"Do we have to have name calling?" Naomi asks, rubbing her head. "Seriously, L, just possess the thing and kill it, so we can go home."

The gorgon zooms across the gardens, and comes to rest right in front of L.

"Yes," L muses. "That was my plan, wasn't it? Perhaps I was too rash."

"You're going to let it go?" Naomi asks, sounding mostly surprised and maybe a little admiring.

He knows the risks. He knows that someone else might come across this gorgon one day. But he cannot go around locking up good people – or good _anything_ – just because they might go bad one day.

The world needs good people, right now.

Yes. He was too rash.

"Promise me," L says sternly, "that you will never again let anyone gain control of you. No matter what."

The creature shakes its head fiercely. In the low afternoon light, it looks like a discoloured human.

"If it happens again, I may be forced to kill you," L continues. "And please, rest assured that I will."

The gorgon flashes him another smile. It's quite pretty, really.

L hands over the pendant without preamble. The gorgon clutches at it reverently and gives another broken, unintelligible warble, before whirling off across the grounds and out of sight.

"Are you sure you did the right thing?" Raye asks, nudging him.

"No," L replies honestly.

* * *

The Penbers insist on staying for a little while to help sort out the mess in the library. There are citizens to be reassured, and lost children to be accounted for, and a whole lot of books strewn all over the aisles.

That's the thing about the Tracking Library. Plenty of books available to the public, but only the librarian can access the hell records.

L has the vague feeling there's something huge and suspicious going on here, but he chalks it up to low blood sugar. He certainly doesn't trust his own judgement right now.

He squats in one corner, away from the crowd, enjoying has last few Rae-free moments.

"L?"

He raises his head just a little.

"Mail." The younger man is so gaunt and dead-eyed that L doesn't even want to look at him. "What is it?"

He has a rosary bead between his fingers. L thinks it might be going mouldy, but it's hard to tell in the harsh fluorescent lighting. With only one functioning eye.

Mail crouches down beside L.

"I hate him," he says hoarsely.

L blinks at him.

"Do you?"

"_No_!"

L rocks back on his heels, a little uncertain about where the conversation is going.

"Then why-"

"I want my life back," Mail says explosively. "God, I hate this. I hate everything. I hate praying all the time to something I don't even fuckin' believe in. I hate working all day, every day. I hate that I hate my video games. I hate that I want to _die_! Isn't this enough? Haven't I felt enough?"

He finishes abruptly, panting hard. His confessions cost him dearly. L understands that much.

_Haven't I felt enough_?

The correct answer, of course, is yes. It is the social responsibility of every person to comfort the miserable, and bring normalcy to the grief-stricken.

"Have you felt enough?" L asks softly, because he's _terrible_ when it comes to social responsibility, but he knows Mail.

"I want my life back," Mail says again, burying his face in his knees. "He didn't have to die, L. And…and he tried to leave me behind. He was _going_ to leave me behind. Again!"

"He is your life," L surmises, staring straight ahead. There is dust on the windowsill.

"I can't rest," Mail chokes. "I _can't_."

"Then this will never end," L says, pushing the worry from his own voice. "Mail. _Matt_."

"Don't call me that!"

"It was who you were, when you were with him," L reasons. "Mail, then. What are you going to do? You cannot carry on this way indefinitely."

"I wish there was someone I could bargain with," the younger man mutters. "I'd give anything. I'd suffer forever. I'd lose him forever, just for one more moment."

"That sounds utterly pointless," L informs him.

_I will get him back._

"I want to try something," Mail admits. "I…I want to try and do what other people do. I want to try grieving like a normal person. And then I…I want to…I want to move…"

"You have been worn out," L tells him gently, touching his shoulder. "It's all right. The things you feel, they are…acceptable. And human."

Mail snorts and wipes his eyes.

"What would you know about being human?" he asks weakly.

L tries not to grimace.

He's only joking, after all.

* * *

"Well," Naomi Penber says brightly. "That's everything, I think."

"The library is back to the way it was," Raye Penber agrees earnestly.

Quillsh Wammy bows politely. Mail Jeevas stares sombrely at the floor.

And L Lawliet stares at her as if he can read her name and title off her face. As if he can see his favourite successor trapped inside her eyes.

"Thank you," she says graciously. "Please, have a safe trip home."

The others turn to leave without hesitation or complaint, but the great detective himself lingers a little longer.

"There's something about you," he deduces quietly. "You are not normal. You have become a part of this place."

The world is full of humans. They build up, and breed, and cover the worlds like insects. They are tiny and powerless, compared to her. She judges them without pity, without remorse. She tortures anyone who might be evil. She is their god.

And yet, this human. He is…beyond anything he should be. Stupendous. She almost wishes she could get to _know_ him.

"Yes," she agrees, honestly. "I have. And you…don't you ever stop."

L frowns at her.

"What do you mean?"

The queen smiles to herself.

"If I were trying to bed you, I'd tell you that you are unique. Impossible to replicate. Your life is precious, because you cannot be replaced."

Even her power has a limit. She cannot build someone like L Lawliet, not in any fake reality, not with any amount of warping of time and space. Oh, she can make a horribly distorted version, like the bitchy, vindictive lookalike in Mihael's hell. But nothing like the real L. He is a fixed point, and he is right here.

And she hopes she gets the chance to explain that to him, one day. Because she hopes that perhaps he will come to forgive her for what she has done. What she _had_ to do.

He is a spectacular human. She'd fall for him, right alongside his pretty heir, if he were in her jurisdiction for even one day. _Anyone_ could fall for him. He's human to the core.

Well…almost anyone.

She hopes, when he realises what she has done to him, that he will accept that she had no other choice.

She oughtn't care what he thinks, but she does.

"Have you actually managed to persuade someone to have intercourse with you using that line?" L asks sceptically.

She laughs and holds out her hand.

"Sorry. Sometimes I go a little stir crazy in here."

L stares at her some more, ignores her offered hand, and then leaves abruptly. She lets herself watch him leave for only a few seconds, before she turns away and retrieves her pistol from the filing cabinet under her desk.

There's something _else_ she has to do.

* * *

The gorgon whips through city after city, moving almost too quickly to be seen, and definitely too quickly to be believed.

But Jas, she can move fast too. Fast enough to catch a gorgon in a matter of minutes.

He stops when he sees her, and smiles wanly.

_Old mistress_.

She grins back. He has earned that much, after all.

"You've done very well," she replies warmly.

He shakes his head so fast his own worms slap him in the face.

_No. Master, bad. Old master, very bad. Bad!_

He used to be so articulate, and so very good-looking. He used to hate the fact that his eyes didn't work perfectly on their own.

So she took away his words, and his looks, and made him live with those eyes every day. No glasses, no reprieve.

She is hell. Bringer of all things.

"And yet, you have learned from them," she tells him. "Finally. You have learned."

_No more gods_, he thinks pitifully. _No more. Please_.

"No more gods, then. Just you."

_Just me_?

She folds her arms.

"Didn't you ever wonder how I could understand you without possessing you? Or why I can look into your eyes directly and remain unharmed?"

_Yes._

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. This little expose, which she knows off by heart, is the very best part of her job.

"I am the god of hell," she says calmly. "That is why. When you were alive, when you were human, you were evil. So when you died, you were placed in hell. But I gave you one chance to prove yourself today, and you were successful. You are about to be released."

He stares at her, slack-jawed and lost.

_Human again?_

He sounds as though he doesn't dare to dwell on that thought. As if it's too amazing to ever possibly be true.

"Yes. Human again."

The gorgon giggles to himself.

_Such a good story. Wish it were true. You. Hell. Ha._

She smiles sweetly and levels the pistol right at his chest, savouring the shock in his eyes. It will be the last time she sees him, after all.

_Wait!_

"No waiting," she says happily. "This is how it works."

_No!_

"Teru Mikami," she says softly. "Do better this time."

_Bang_.

* * *

They go back to London. It seems to be the thing to do. Solve case, arrest criminal, sustain damage, go home.

Eat cake.

Only this time, L forgoes the last step. He needs sugar – perhaps more desperately than he ever has before – but he doesn't actually want any of the twelve thousand, seven hundred and four cakes that comprise Watari's culinary arsenal, and he doesn't want anything from the bakeries.

He doesn't really want to eat at all.

"It was a good outcome, wasn't it?" Naomi points out, obviously noticing his mood.

L shrugs.

"We defeated Holland, and you were scared that we wouldn't be able to do that," she continues earnestly.

"Yes, I understand what you are saying," L replies irritably. "Can you please find something else to do, preferably in a different room?"

She clicks her tongue.

"L, we saved people toda-"

"Not everyone," he says abruptly.

"There are always casualties," she continues, unabashed. "We're dealing with evil fucking bastards, most of the time. Just because we are trying to stop them doesn't make us suddenly responsible for the people they hurt."

L ignores her, swivelling his chair so he's sitting a little more obliquely, just to prove his point.

She sighs.

"How is your eye?"

"I do not imagine the status of my eye has changed from Watari's in-flight assessment, nor is it ever likely to change," he replies curtly. "It is two am in the morning, and I would like to sleep, please."

Naomi stares at him thoughtfully, as if she'd like to say something else and is trying to hold herself back. She is the closest thing he has to a true friend, and one of the few people that he considers to be a near-equal to himself, but he is tired of her voice.

He is tired of everything.

"You look after yourself," she orders softly, and leaves.

Once L hears her footsteps reach the end of the hallway, he gets to his feet and locks the door, before collapsing back into his favourite chair.

The green one. Grace didn't like green. He remembers.

He fidgets and gets up again. He moves across the room, and comes to rest in front of the enormous, one-way-glass, floor-to-ceiling window.

London city looks small and dark, stretched out endlessly beneath him. The silence seems to last forever.

"Would you hurry up and say it?" he asks finally, without looking behind him.

Rae is standing in the opposite corner, bony hands clenched into fists, glaring at him with absolute loathing. It has been doing the exact same thing for several hours now.

"What?" it demands hatefully.

"I do not believe, after everything that has happened, that you have no scathing criticism of my actions," L explains.

Rae puffs up its chest furiously.

"_Well_," it snarls. "It seems that once again, the great L has presumed incorrectly. I have _nothing_ to say to you, I promise. I don't ever really want to _speak_ to you again."

L taps his chest.

"And this?"

Disbelief flits briefly across the Shinigami's fearsome eyes.

"You really _are_ confused as to which of us is evil," it spits darkly. "Do you think I…you know what, you _were_ right. You can't be trusted with that death note. Give it back. I'll forfeit…"

"You will forfeit being king?" L asks curiously. He releases the notebook from the holster under his shirt and holds it out. "Honestly? Then here, take it."

"I just might," Rae growls, but it hesitates all the same, fingers hovering an inch away from the glossy black leather cover.

"No," L says decisively. "No, I do not believe you would. Not in ordinary circumstances, anyway. But people – and perhaps all creatures – can change when they become angry."

"I am no _ape_! I can control myself," Rae informs him. The '_unlike certain other people in this room'_ is heavily implied.

And rightly so. He raises his chin delicately, and regards the towering skeleton in the half-light of the room.

_Skellington! His name is Boney!_

Its not as if there will be any consequences for telling Rae. And he's…hell, he's got one eye and faux Kiras keep turning up all over the place, and he's pretty much defeated anyway. Watari keeps hinting about him 'settling down'. Mail seems like he might even be gearing up to take his place, probably in conjunction with Naomi.

Raye will be happy if he retires, too.

The point is, he thinks it might be time he actually told someone else about the worst thing he ever did.

And he wants to be judged harshly. Who better than his number one critic, after all?

"The last time I got angry, I had someone killed," he says, without preamble.

"You tried to kill _me_."

L touches his lower lip.

"That wasn't what I meant. I was…angry when Matsuda died, yes, but not to the same extent. The last time I was truly, completely, unendingly angry, I wanted to set the world on fire."

"You know, if I didn't know it was impossible, I'd say you'd been spending too much time with Mello."

L sighs.

"Please stop trying to derail me."

"No."

"Fine."

L winds a strand of hair around his index finger, and then realises what he's doing, and snatches his hand away.

"I was six years old," he continues, relaxing into a more comfortable crouch. "I killed someone. It was completely my fault. No one else could possibly have taken responsibility for instigating her death except me."

"A murderer at six, huh?" Rae says with a feral smirk. "Huh. Maybe I _do_ want to hear this story."

"Yes," L says calmly. "I think you ought to."

The Shinigami flops down onto the corner of his bed and crosses its legs.

"So, who was she?"

"Her name was Emma Wakefield," L tells it, and he is shocked by how horrible her name tastes on his tongue, even now, even after so long. He'd have rather said '_Light Yagami'_, to be honest.

"Oh yeah?"

"Anyway, what happened was-"

"Oh no, please tell me more about her, first," Rae implores sweetly. "I want to _know_ the woman you slaughtered."

"Fine. Available data on her private life is fairly limited," L elaborates obligingly. "She was born here in England, although I couldn't tell you the names of her parents. Her school years were probably unremarkable. She graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Physics and Engineering. Dux. Described as 'the most brilliant mind academia has ever known'."

"And you killed her," Rae snorts. "Talk about contributing to the world."

"She married her mentor, a Professor James, I believe," L ploughs on. "Their marriage broke down less than a year later, when he found out that on top of her successful career as a bomb technician, she was moonlighting as a cat-burglar."

He sucks in an unsteady breath.

"Any kids?"

"Yes. One son."

"You killed a single mother?"

"Do you want to hear this story or not?" L asks wearily, and the Shinigami falls silent. "She apparently became bored of thieving rather quickly, and went looking for bigger and better thrills. She rapidly became the most elusive and feared murderer the world had ever seen."

"Wait," Rae interrupts quickly. "This woman, are you talking about the _Shyster_?"

"That was what they called her, yes. The Shyster."

"Your first case."

"Yes, that is correct."

He wants watermelon. This story would be much more bearable with watermelon.

"Okay, right."

"That is all the background information that I can recall," L whispers. "When I was six years old, I spent a year in Japan, attending Nanryo Junior School. It was a fairly pleasant place to live, if I recall correctly. The Shyster apparently thought so, too."

"You're seriously going to tell me you were a fucking detective at six years old?" Rae asks in disbelief. "No wonder you're so messed up."

"I was no detective," L assures it. "I was no genius, either. Or, more accurately, I was intelligent enough. Second best in my class."

"_Second_?"

L curls his toes.

"There was this boy in my class," he says softly. "I do not even remember his name, but he was my…my superior. He bettered me in every subject, in every social setting, in every sport. He was completely, utterly brilliant. His teachers wanted his parents to ascend him to junior high-school level studies, but they refused. He was…the star of the school."

"I bet that hurt," Rae says delightedly. "So, let me guess. He was Wakefield's son?"

"I am finishing this story," L says tersely. "Initially I disliked him immensely, but he was strangely resilient to the rivalry that teacher and others students attempted to implement. He declared me his best friend two weeks after I met him, and I was glad to have someone of similar intellect to converse with. I had never really cared for anyone my own age before, but. Well. Strictly speaking, I adored him."

"Huh."

And L…L had very quickly moved past his own dislike and jealousy, and…god. He is a thousand times more dangerous when he cares for someone than when he is simply enraged.

Who ever put Mello in hell had better watch their back.

But that boy, _that boy._ L wishes he could remember his name. That boy destroyed him for the very first time.

Ordinary children don't turn into unshowered, barefoot, sugar-guzzling, emotionally-stunted, psychopathically logical supergeniuses. Something needs to go wrong.

Tears in the dust. So fragile, so few. He'd been so excited to have a friend, and so _hopeful_, and so ready to ignore all of the crap that made up the rest of his life and…

…and then it had happened. _She_ had happened. Again.

"One day, I came to school to find him standing on the empty baseball field, crying. The…the Shyster had murdered his father."

"So, she wasn't his mother, then?"

"No," L confirms, and leans forward to rest his chin on his knees. "I do not know exactly why – although over the past few years I have perhaps gained some greater insight into the devastating effect that grief can have over people – but from that day on, he was broken."

"Another Jeevas?"

"Oh no," L replies bitterly. "It was…worse than that, in a way. He wept and sulked and recovered his old emotional stability relatively quickly, but it was as if she had annihilated his mind. He…from that day on, he neither exceeded nor equalled me. He became ordinary, even impaired. He began struggling with equations he had previously been able to solve half-asleep. He began failing every other examination. He became…a nobody."

L swallows the bile rising in his throat. He hates thinking about that boy.

"He had always wanted to work for the police. To think that there could have been a detective in the world even greater than myself right now…had she not, had the Shyster chosen someone _else_," he says heatedly. "And what is worse, is that he didn't even care. We actually got into a fistfight over it, because I desperately wanted to _make_ him become who he was before. But he…would not change. Or perhaps he could not. Because of her."

"_I'm sorry your dad got killed."_

"_It's okay. I'm okay."_

"_Don't you think that Shyster lady ought to pay for what she did?"_

"_What? Oh. I don't know. I guess the police will figure it out."_

"I see. She fucked up your boyfriend, so you killed her?"

"I had never known I could feel such powerful emotion," L explains. "You have no idea…I felt _evil_. I was out of control, my whole world tinted red, the consequences of my actions seemed almost imaginary. That night, that very night, after he refused…I helped the local police set a trap. Three months later, Emma Wakefield was sentenced to the electric chair. I watched it happen."

He looks his Shinigami right in the eye.

"I did not feel any remorse," he states quietly. "I was angry for what she had done, and I was glad when she died. There. Now you know."

"Pfft," Rae says flippantly. "Do you think I give a damn about your melodramatic bullshit?"

L cocks his head.

"I thought you might appreciate more evidence with which to proclaim me a terrible human being," he says delicately.

After all, isn't that how Rae has been trying to break him? Because for all its facades, all it really wants is for him to use the note.

Right?

_Right?_

He doesn't know. He is no longer certain that he can even read ordinary people, let alone a Shinigami king. He wants to sleep, and he wants these horrible, awful memories to leave him, and he wants…

He wants.

He just _wants_.

"Like I care," Rae sneers. "So a brilliant serial killer was brought down by a six-year-old orphan. Big deal."

"Oh," L breathes. "Oh, but I wasn't."

"You weren't?"

"No. Not until they put her on the chair."

A few seconds of dead silence pass, while Rae processes this information.

"You…what? She was your _mother_?"

"Of course she was," L replies wanly. "Did you think I found her out of sheer tactical genius? No, no, I had come to Japan with her. She trusted me. I was her ally, her protégé. I always knew where she was, and what she was doing. After all, she wanted me to grow up to be just like her."

He slams his fist against the glass pain.

"But I _hated_ what she did," he growls. "The more I saw of it, the more I hated it. All that moving around, different schools, different faces, different _victims_. I wanted to turn her over. She…she did it for me. She did it for _me_. Because I wanted to beat him. Because I wanted to be the best. She thought that was more _important_ to me than…"

He chokes and stumbles over his own words, completely and utterly lost.

"Because I wanted to beat him, she murdered his father. How…how is the world supposed to contend with a mind like that? And what she did to him. I was…I wasn't supposed to stay to see the execution. But I wanted to see her in pieces. In _pieces_."

He swallows again. His throat is scratchy and dry. He needs tea. Or maybe juice. He needs to stop.

"So they took me to Watari," he finishes, with a sad little smile. "And they called me a genius and placed me in an orphanage, and changed some of the official details about Wakefield's capture, and that was that."

He pushes his face against the cold glass, and waits for Rae's scathing reply.

The room remains silent.

"So that's…that's why you should take the note back," he concludes. "I had her murdered. Not out of justice, not out of love, or loyalty, or good ethics. I had her killed because she _made me angry_. You were right. I am a monster. I hope you're happy."

He shambles back to his feet, exhausted and completely spent. He thinks maybe if he has a really hot shower, it might make the concept of sleep far more plausible. And maybe he needs a brownie as well, if he can find one. And then he ought to go and sit with Mail for a while.

"You _idiot!_" Rae yells finally, sounding significantly distressed. "You…what are you saying? You dobbed in your own _mother_."

"Yes. It was-"

"That's the most awesome thing I've ever heard!" Rae howls, and L feels its words like a physical blow, like a jolt of electricity. "How come you never do things like that any more? How did you get to be so far off track?"

"But I was ang-"

"Yeah, I get it. But you still did the right thing."

L looks over his shoulder in confusion. The room is different. Something is off, something has changed.

"I…did?"

"Of course. Jeeze. You'd have to operating under a pretty strict moral code to be able to arrest someone you _loved_ for committing crimes, however heinous," the Shinigami informs him. "I can't believe…I feel like I don't even know you."

L regards his feet.

"I thought you, of all people, would judge me."

"I _am_ judging you! Do more of that."

"Getting ridiculously angry and killing people?"

"If you're going to put away murderers like _her_, then yes," Rae replies firmly. "You shouldn't need me to tell you this, you know."

L turns around to face it then, and he knows there's a tiny, uncertain, stupid smile on his face. Because this was not the reaction he was expecting and he doesn't quite know what to make of the world, and…

_What_?

Rae's eyes. They are the colour of chocolate. Brown. Not red. Brown.

L cannot stop staring at them.

It's a trick of the light. It's his own damaged vision. It has to be. People cannot just _change_ the pigmentation of their iris at will.

Shinigami are not people.

"What's your problem _now_?" Rae demands.

"Are your eyes different?" L demands weakly. "They seem different."

"No, asshole. That's because _your_ eyes are fucked up."

"Of course."

But the death god rubs one hand over its face as soon as it thinks L isn't looking, and when it is finished, he sees the same fire-death-burning red that has always been there.

Except…they _had been _brown.

He doesn't go down to Mail. He doesn't even make it to the bathroom. He crawls into bed, mind swimming with the woman who named him, and the man named 'James Lawliet' that he'd never known, and that boy, and Grace, and Holland, and Light, and the gorgon, and a million other things.

And yet, he sleeps a little better than usual, and he cannot fully ascertain why.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ I was sorely tempted to post this in two bits, but there's no nice place to break it up, and besides, I feel like I'm mooching for reviews if I post too many chapters. so here you are, fourteen thousand words. sorry it is so ridiculously late.

+ I feel I should warn for the fact that the next bit may also take a long time to go up. I haven't even started it yet, and I just know it's going to be horrible to write because there's a new plot and I'm not even quite sure of the details. (I am really not intelligent enough to be writing L-based fic, augh). so, my apologies if next chapter takes a while, it will hopefully still be up before christmas.

+ thank you for reading.


	22. Flowers

notes/warnings:

+ this is probably the main M2 chapter so far, so there's a lot of Matt x Mello. it's kind of an interlude, I guess, but there's still a lot of stuff that's important to the main storyline going on.

+ mentions of sex and really mild mentions of drug-taking.

+ swearing, yup.

music: _hello_, by evanescence

* * *

**Flowers**

The next few cases are wholly unremarkable, almost _routine_. And yet, L struggles.

He strains his back because he needs to lean closer to the surveillance screens to make out fine detail. He puts a bullet-hole in the wall of Watari's training room because he overestimates the proximity of a target during a simulation program. Then he nearly gets Raye killed by incorrectly estimating the position of a booby trap in a suspected assassin's basement.

"Look," Naomi tells him, during the drive home. "You need to start working within your limitations, or you're going to get one of us killed. Or worse, you'll get _yourself_ killed."

"I am not more important than anyone else," L replies sharply. He hates all of this. He cannot bear the thought that he is no longer completely functional. That something in him does not _work_.

_Permanently_.

"Fine," she says briskly. "But you're still an important part of this team."

The eye-patch reduces his powers of deduction by three point five percent.

He thinks that maybe they reduced by one hundred percent the day Light killed him.

A foot connects deftly with the back of his chair, and L half-turns and forces a smile, for Mail's sake.

"What she said," the younger man hisses threateningly, and then goes back to tracing '_Mel_' onto the dry window.

He keeps asking L how _normal_ people grieve, and L honestly isn't sure he knows what that word means any more.

"So, how did you get 'Lawliet' from 'Wakefield', anyway?" the Shinigami asks, in the same, strange, calculating tone it's been using since he confessed to it.

"Professor James Lawliet," L replies evenly, his fingers moving delicately over his computer keyboard. "She gave me his name. I think, perhaps, she may have even loved him."

"And, er, the first name?"

"She changed my alias every time we moved, which was about once every three months," L explains patiently. "So she just gave me an initial to have for myself, so that I'd theoretically be better adapted to the never-ending enslaught of new identities."

He is supposed to be searching a database of Swedish tax records, in order to uncover the recent movements of a group of skilled juvenile fraudsters. He would rather get on with the task at hand, too. Interacting with Rae has become strangely uncomfortable.

Rae cups one hand around its chin.

"I still don't understand why you keep it a secret," the death god says calmly. "Why conceal the one truly good thing you ever did with your life?"

"All of the other people I have saved do not count?" L asks irritably.

"No. You saved them for selfish reasons."

"If by 'selfish reasons', you mean 'desire to be a good person', then yes. Yes, I did."

"No, not good. Great. You want people to realise that you are _great_. I wish I could have met you when you were six. I could have moulded you into a much better human being."

"That is, by far, the most disturbing thing you have ever said to me," L informs it, unable to suppress a tiny shudder. "And does that mean that as king, you cannot bend time and space?"

"Nobody can bend time and space," Rae snaps. "Now you're being ridiculous."

L blinks hard, momentarily surprised into silence. He remembers Rem's words, the very first time she described hell for him.

_Most humans are put into some sort of altered reality._

Is it not reasonable, then, to presume that someone or something _can_ alter time and space. So why does Rae not know, or even suspect? What is going _on_ with the Shinigami realm?

And is the human world – or rather, the human _worlds_ – going to suffer the consequences? Is Rae already a consequence?

It has crossed L's mind before, briefly, that perhaps Rae is not actually the heir to the throne. He has entertained the idea that his is simply a mad, delusional Shinigami with no actual future prospects.

Can gods become mentally ill?

"Damnit," L mutters out loud. He needs _Rem_. She is his informant in the supernatural world. With her help, he is certain he could have beaten Holland in half the time.

_Half_ the time.

Then again, he certainly doesn't want to hear what Rem has to say about their now-matching headwear. And there's always the risk that someone as sweet as her might try to _counsel_ him, and be _supportive_, and say _motivational things_.

After all, she's always tried to keep him safe – maybe even happy – ever since he died.

L realises with a jolt that he's forgotten, or at least neglected to remember, one of the very first things she ever told him.

'_Whatever you do, no matter what, you must not surrender your memories to Rae. You must never give up ownership of the death note. It will hurt you if it gets the chance.'_

And yet, a month ago, just before he'd told his Shinigami about his mother, he had been ready to…

If he gives up, Rae will destroy him.

That is not the way L wishes to die. No. He will write his own name, first. He cannot let his guard down, not even for a second. And certainly not because the death god seems to have some bizarre admiration for someone he hasn't been in almost thirty years.

"Damnit what?" Rae prompts.

"Nothing," L replies, in the most aloof voice he can muster. "Just damnit."

* * *

"Oh hey, it's November. That annual fair at Southampton will be held in a few days."

L lifts his head from his desk and regards Naomi sleepily.

"Hmm?"

"Oh, the one where two or three people mysteriously drop dead every year?" Raye enquires enthusiastically.

"They still haven't caught the killers," Naomi informs him.

"Possibly because there is no proof that anyone has been _killed_," L reasons. "It is a public gathering of dubious quality. Rides are poorly-maintained. Food is prepared unsafely. Accidents are bound to happen."

She shrugs.

"Yeah, but it's not like we're doing anything else."

L stares at the monster in the corner. Rae is watching him with near-scientific curiosity, and it's bothering him more than he cares to admit.

They're heading for the four-year mark now. Not long to go. He doesn't want to just be another pawn in someone else's game. He does not want to lose.

If he writes his own name before the five years have ended, does that mean Rae still gets to be king?

Does it matter?

Mail elbows him subtly.

"Isn't there, uh, spiritual stuff at this thing?" he questions, almost inaudibly.

_Oh_.

L touches his shoulder briefly.

"Would you like to go?" he queries.

"Yeah. I think so."

"Okay," L announces loudly. "We will go and investigate. Tomorrow."

* * *

That night, when L sleeps, Rae rests as well, its bare skull tipped back against the wall.

L is used to the death god, now. It is familiar to him, like headaches, and body odour, and Mail's grief.

And unlike his new disability.

L swats reflexively at the material that covers his damaged eye, as if that will somehow help his situation. Things are changing. He isn't sure where he's supposed to go, or what he is supposed to do.

And Watari keeps _looking_ at him, and make vague suggestions that maybe he ought to think about retiring.

But if he were to give this up, there would be no point to his life. Besides, he will be forced out of work one day, anyway. He is certain of that. One day he will have no anonymity left. So he may as well prolong the inevitable for as long as he can.

Rae's expression is dormant, almost unseeing. L curls up into a horizontal version of his usual crouch, and lets himself drift.

He is woken – not much later – by soft, vehement muttering.

"No. No, no, no."

He opens one eye, and tries to push the blanket away from the other before he remembers. Rae is awake, and seems to be staring off into the darkness.

"Shut up, you stupid kid."

"You okay?" L asks, the word '_Grace'_ on the tip of his tongue.

The death god startles a little, and then rolls its fiery eyes.

"Yeah, fine."

"Were you dreaming about her, Boney?" he whispers.

"No. Someone else. Go back to sleep," Rae commands.

L frowns.

"So…you do dream?"

"Not exactly," the Shinigami groans. "Just…waking visions."

"You sounded disturbed."

"You've never had a nightmare before, genius?"

L lifts his head.

"Waking _nightmares_?" he demands.

"Go back to fucking sleep," Rae snarls, neatly turning its back on him. "This does not involve you."

L does not return to slumber. He stays awake, eyes wide open. A strange, nagging feeling has settled in one corner of his mind. He feels as if there are answers here that he ought to know.

Rae's situation is so different from any other Shinigami he's met, or heard of. Sometimes, L gets the feeling that Rae's life doesn't actually make _sense_.

And that bothers him deeply, because if things do not make sense, then there is always, always someone who is writing the script.

He's not sure – not even one percent certain – but he feels uneasy, all the same.

* * *

The night drags on, a carbon copy of every other long night he's somehow managed to survive. Of course, surviving is his only actual option, since death just leads to more surviving in a slightly different place, apparently.

He touches the rosary resting on his bare chest. Sometimes it seems like the only thing that matters in the world.

The sky is dark, dark blue, and the stars seem cold and distant. He is lying on his bed because it takes too much energy to sit or stand. When everyone else sleeps, he can mourn in peace.

God, he's so sick of this fucking shit. Fuck Mello. Fuck _everyone_!

There is no reason for him to even care. After all, the world has never given a shit about him. His fucking parents – whoever they were – left him on the side of a hill to _die_, and then he wound up in some stupid Scottish orphanage, and then Watari discovered that he had half a brain in his head and spirited him off to Winchester. And from that point onwards, nobody around him cared about how he was feeling or his latest high score in tetris. The only thing anyone ever wanted to know was whether he was improving in his seventeen-digit mental multiplication, or if he was reaching Mensa-levels in his nightly IQ tests yet.

And Near – clever, cute, _brilliant_ little Near – never had the time of day for fucking _anyone_. He was too busy playing with his toys. Or playing with his hair. Or inserting his toys into his hair, Mail could never fucking work out what the fuck he did all day.

In a situation like the one at Wammy's, when there is someone who worries about you, who lets you sit next to them in every class no matter what, who actually listens to five seconds worth of your thesis on why Samus Aran is better than Lara Croft before telling you to shut the fuck up, then they quickly become your entire _universe_.

And Mello was – is – his universe. God. He would give _anything_.

He wants to go back to Wammy's House again, and have all of that again. Just one more time.

He remembers. He can recall the garden in vivid detail. Some former student had been a horticultural prodigy, and had successfully created a line of blue roses. Not lavender, not duck-egg off-white, but a real, sky blue. Amazing blue. The colour of Mello's eyes. And every summer, those roses would bloom, dotting the greenery, weighing down the air with sticky fragrance, coating the paths and lawn with a thick layer petals. He used to be euphoric at that time of year, hopeful and bright, senses filled up with blonde hair and leather and companionship.

_Good times_.

Mail brings one bead to his lips. It tastes like rotting wood and mould. He always imagined Mello's skin would taste vaguely like chocolate, but he never got the chance to find out.

And anyway, as much as Mello might have been his friend, he'd dropped him like a sack of potatoes as soon as he hit fifteen and realised he was never going to be able to beat Near. No goodbye. No well wishes. No estimated date of return. One day Mail went to Mello's room, and Mello wasn't there. And never came back. For _four years_. That's all.

It was then that Mail realised that everything he had come to feel…it was all just him. Mello didn't adore him, didn't think he was special, and certainly didn't _love_ him. Mail was just an unobtrusive part of everything he left behind.

And even four years later, after he'd finally received the phone call he'd been desperately waiting for, after he'd sat with Mello while the man angsted and stressed and blustered and plotted, after he'd agreed to work as a decoy, after all of that, Mello had still been going to leave him again.

That conversation. He will never forget. They had this tiny, decrepit little apartment, with mildew-stained carpet and shredded curtains and no electricity. It was the morning of the day Mello would attempt to kidnap Takada, and he could not seem to relax, checking the motorbike, checking the car, cleaning the guns, re-examining the schedule Mail had hacked for him, checking the motorbike.

He had transferred all of the money he had left into Mail's savings account. Mail wasn't supposed to know about that, but he knew a warning sign when he damn well found one.

And if Mello had a plan? Well, Mail had a plan too.

'_Hey, Mel. Can we go to New York for Christmas?'_

'_What? What the fuck? You want to talk about Christmas? Now?'_

Yes, because he had wanted Mello to tell him they had some sort of future. He'd wanted Mello to look him in the eye and tell him he wasn't about to lay down his precious life for this pointless, pointless venture.

'_Fine. Whatever. Just shut up, I'm trying to calculate the best route for your escape, given the recent variations in the flow of local traffic_.'

Mello hadn't even looked at him. Mail had moved towards him, then, the pretence of casualness abandoned, all fear and panic and desperation.

Ever defensive, Mello had gotten to his feet, fast enough to knock his own chair flying. Mail remembers the tiny hole in the hem of his sleeveless shirt, and the blood stain that still lingered on his expensive belt buckle.

But he cannot recall the man's face, not in detail. Not the shape of his nose, or the grit of bared teeth, or the scar Mail longed to touch. Only those ice-blue eyes. So violent, so beautiful, so _alive_.

So resigned.

_'You're going to live, right?' _Mail had demanded, and he still feels sick thinking about it.

_'What are you talking about?'_

So Mello had been prepared to lie to him. To let him survive, and live, and go on all fucking alone, while Mello left in a blaze of pain and indifference.

_'You're not thinking of letting them kill you, are you? You're going to walk away from this just the same as I am, right?'_

God, he had been so angry. Mello had been so tiny, so fragile. Mail's world.

_'Yeah, yeah.'_

Even in the end, all Mello had wanted to do was leave him behind. And he'd blatantly ignored Mail's desperate little plea, even when Mail got close enough that he couldn't be ignored.

_'Promise me.'_

_'What? What are you asking for, you idiot? I'm not going to die!'_

The lie had been everywhere, written all over his face. Mail could have had him then, just once, up against the wall. It would have been worth every possibly retaliation, even if Mello had shot him in the heart then and there.

But resisting the way he felt was a long-seated, unshakeable habit.

_'Good. Promise, then. Promise me you'll live to see the other side of this.'_

The one and only time Mello had ever touched him. He'd grabbed Mail's forearm with his gloved hand, obviously terrified, seeking some sort of comfort. And then he had let go and turned away before Mail had even had time to process the situation.

Should have grabbed him back.

* * *

_Dawn rolls around, to the jaunty tune of Dwayne vomiting up whatever floor cleaner he drank last night. Sometimes you really wish he had the money to buy proper alcohol. _

_Of course, you're not exactly rich, either. L keeps ordering pay-cuts every time you fuck up a mission, which is approximately twice a week. Near told you yesterday, in no uncertain terms, that if Kira ever beats them, it will be because of you._

_You try to push that memory from your mind, and you try to ignore Dwayne for just a little longer. Anyone who still sleeps with six teddy bears shouldn't be allowed to go and get drunk every night, anyway._

_You, at least, are enough of a grown up to have forgone toys, although maybe that's just because the last thing you want is to have something in common with Near._

_But you do sleep with one of Matt's shirts. He left it at your place once, months ago, and you casually left it sitting on your bed, next to your pillow, and pointedly haven't bothered to put it anywhere else._

_It doesn't really smell like him any more, but it's stripy and comforting. You pull it closer and duck your head back under the blankets._

_It's the most you will ever have._

_You are glad, in a way, that you've never kissed him on the lips, or seen him naked, or – heaven forbid – slept with him. You would rather not know what you're missing out on. Besides, if you have one redeeming feature, it's the fact that you've always tried to protect Matt. You even heard L say that exact thing to Jasmine last week, so you know it must be true. He is your saving grace, maybe. Your ability to ignore and compartmentalise your love of him is the only thing that makes you human._

_And you can honestly say that you've always tried your hardest. Back at Wammy's, you even did everything you could to make sure he wouldn't get overly attached to you. And damn, didn't that hurt?_

_You talked about Near constantly, as if your rival had been your whole world. You told him to shut up after five seconds of him explaining to you why one attractive video game heroine was better than another. And then you left without saying goodbye so he'd realise what an asshole you were._

_And you never, ever shared your chocolate with him. Even now, you still don't._

_You shouldn't have worried, really. Matt couldn't be less attached to you if he were dead, although you used to kid yourself otherwise. You used to pretend the two of you had achieved some special level of friendship that made you both invincible. You used to imagine that you'd grow up and live with him until you were both old and grey._

_And then, when you got older, when the two of you shared an apartment for just a few short weeks, you used to daydream about having something more than that. About his hands in your hair, and his head on your pillow, and…_

_You shake your head violently. No. None of that. What you wanted back then was sick, and wrong, and it is demeaning to him to even think of it now. He has Jasmine – good, pure Jasmine – and it will be her hair, and her pillow, forever._

_And that's just how it ought to be._

_

* * *

_

The fair smells like candyfloss, and mud, and malfunctioning portable toilets. The grounds are so packed that they have to split up and investigate individually, just to be able to move around. The whole place makes L think of Matsuda, which does nothing for his present frame of mind.

He threads his way through the throng, trying to not to let Mail get too far out of his sight. The young man has been a veritable train wreck ever since the Holland incident.

Naomi would probably say that he's not the only one, either.

"Oh, _look_, Mommy! A _pirate!_" a little boy shouts jubilantly, one fat pink finger pointing squarely at L.

"Argh," L deadpans, and continues walking.

They only arrived twenty minutes ago, but he's studied the pattern of deaths, and he's already certain of two things. One, that the incidents are _definitely_ murders, and two, that the perpetrator must be a member of the administrative staff. No individual stallholder would have easy access to such a broad range of murder weapons, and L can see that they are all closely guarding their merchandise from the public.

L suspects, with no small amount of disgust, that people are being killed simply to bring intrigue, and free publicity, to this once-struggling fair.

He is presently tailing the organiser's daughter – a Ms Abigail Marshall – as she delivers coffee and free sandwiches to the stalls. She keeps looking over her shoulder, but it's hard to tell whether her behaviour is based in fear or paranoia.

It's also hard to ascertain whether he is keeping a respectable distance from her. He has to keep counting the number of stalls between the two of them, and estimating based on average length.

It is frustrating. Everything is frustrating. The whole investigation seems to be going nowhere. He has witnessed exactly two semi-suspicious events today; two five year olds professing to be axe-murderers, and a woman who resembles Minnie from the Tracking Library walking around in a full-face mask. No-one adding poison to food products. No-one hiding in darkened corners with weaponry. No-one loitering near the ride mechanisms. Nothing.

And he harbours significant doubt that Ms Marshall is going to undertake in anything untoward.

"It's not her," Rae says, appearing at his side without preamble.

L raises one eyebrow in lieu of a reply.

"It's her father," Rae continues confidently. "Amos Marshall. I just saw him slip something into the peppermint tea at the brewery stall."

"It could be nothing," L mouths.

"Oh, right. You want to wait to see if a bunch of people die first, am I correct?" Rae asks scathingly. "Seriously, he waited until everyone had their backs turned, and as soon as he finished he hurried away from the place. Now he's headed to the men's room with a concealed dagger in his shirt. How much more proof do you want?"

It would not do to give away the investigation by publicly arresting the wrong person. And L has no good reason to trust the Shinigami.

Hm.

More people will die from poisoned tea than an assassin waiting in the bathroom.

"All right. Take me to the stall, and I will purchase some of this tea. As soon as I have left, please knock over the pot. Make sure it looks like an accident. I will then monitor his behaviour."

"Done," Rae says, without hesitation.

L tilts his head curiously.

_So, you choose to do that which will save more lives, even though it does not involve the note?_

What does that mean? Is the Shinigami actually _serious_ about protecting the innocent and punishing the evil? Is becoming king _not_ its primary goal? Is it more than just a megalomaniac? Has it changed? Has it always been this way?

And if so, why so? Why should it care about humans? Why does it want justice? Does it want to become king solely to dispense justice? That is not the orthodox role of a god of death.

Is it?

His head is starting to hurt. He pushes his own unanswered questions aside and follows Rae through the crowd. He purchases his tea quickly, and leaves without taking a sip. As soon as he is out of sight of the stall, he pours the contents of the cup into the tiny thermos he carries in his pocket. Behind him, he hears an almighty crash and smiles.

Rae is reliable, in some ways. Actually, in a lot of ways. It worries L that it might be Rae's words – and Rae's words alone – that have kept him going after he almost crashed and burned over Holland and Grace and the memory of the Shyster.

Never mind that now.

L finds Amos in the bathroom, surreptitiously attempting to leave. Behind him is the cooling corpse of some unfortunate fair-goer who happened to walk in on a psychopath and his knife.

"H-help me!" Amos stammers, grabbing at his shirt. "I just found him, oh god. He's _dead_!"

"Of course he's dead," L replies stonily, and then ducks what Amos probably thinks is a sneaky right hook. "You just killed him."

Amos shoves him against the wall, retrieving the knife from his pocket with his free hand.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he replies with a maniacal grin. "You're next."

_Ah_, L thinks. _So this is going to be an easy case, then_.

* * *

He hits his belt twice – a call for backup – and then kicks Amos in the chin, mostly to avoid being knifed under the ribs. The problem is that the man has placed himself between L and the exit, which means L has to spar to buy time until the others arrive.

"Come here," Amos leers. "I'll take your other fucking eye out, goth-boy."

Why does everyone accuse him of being gothic, anyway? Lots of people have black hair. L dives backwards and the knife misses his face by a heck of a lot less than he'd estimated.

Oh hell. He's in a fistfight with an armed murderer, and he has no weapons and no depth perception.

This may end badly.

L kicks again, and catches Amos in the chest. The man gasps, and recovers quickly. L has time to make one erratic grab for the knife, and fails to retrieve it.

He kicks again, too slowly, and Amos punches him in the stomach with his empty fist. Then he attempts to drive the knife into L's chest, forcing L to drop to his knees to escape.

He's not carrying any weapons. _Why_ is he not carrying any weapons? Has he become so complacent?

Is it really time to retire?

Amos swipes at his face again, and L hunches. And suddenly Rae is there, screaming at him that he needs to hit the floor or Amos is going to make contact.

The knife slips through his hair a second later, and L stares at the ground in revelation.

He cannot do this on his own.

"Get up right now!" Rae barks. "Just do as I tell you."

L springs back onto his feet right as Amos drives the knife into the spot where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier.

"Bring your knee up as hard as you can."

L connects with Amos' forehead, and the man staggers. He feels useless and puppet-like, but at least he's still alive.

"Okay, now…go for the knife," Rae says rapidly. "It is exactly twenty-two centimetres away from your left hand. Go!"

L snatches, almost blindly, and feels his hand close over metal. He twists – just so, the way he's trained himself to do – and successfully disarms Amos.

"Okay, his neck is forty…never mind."

Naomi appears in the doorway, her shotgun trained on Amos Marshall's head.

"It's over," L informs him, with a bright smile.

* * *

"That was possibly the easiest case we've ever had," Raye comments languidly.

"We just got lucky," Naomi reminds him. "L happened to follow the right guy. What made you ditch Abigail, anyway, L?"

L glances at his Shinigami.

"Go on," it says happily. "Tell her I'm awesome."

"His behaviour was point seven percent more suspicious," L lies, but he spares Rae a tiny smile, all the same.

"So, now what?" Raye asks, clasping his hands over his head. "I'd really like to look around, if you geniuses can cope with doing normal human stuff for ten minutes."

"Ten minutes? Really?" L enquires. "Exactly how rapidly are you intending to peruse?"

"I just want to go home," Mail adds morosely. "I hate this place."

"Ten minutes would be enough to get us a curry," Naomi points out lightly. "We would test it for poisons first, of course."

"It's been _ages_ since I had proper Indian food," Raye agrees, rubbing his stomach, and L knows he has lost the argument.

"Ten minutes exactly," he orders. "We will meet you at the car."

Watari is waiting for them at the far end of the fairground, standing obligingly beside L's favourite Sedan. The car is white, and looks no different from any other vehicle in the parking lot. As much as L adores his limousines and their cake-stocked bar fridges, he needs something more normal for undercover work.

Mail stops short of the car, his dark blue eyes trained on one of the nearby vendors. A florist.

"What is it?" L asks him softly. He speaks to Mail as he would a small animal, always frightened of provoking him, of making things worse.

"Blue," Mail replies, somewhat cryptically, until L sees the roses.

Sky-coloured roses. Undoubtedly the same strain as the kind that used to grow at the orphanage. All bundled up into little bunches, and being sold for a befittingly hefty price.

_Memories._

L touches his shoulder.

"Is it better not to look?" he asks carefully.

"It's okay," Mail replies. "It's…isn't that what people do? Flowers for the dead and departed?"

His voice shakes with the last three words, and L sighs.

_Still attempting to be normal, my son?_

"Yes, Mail. That is what people do."

"Great. I'm going to get some, then."

* * *

The fat lady at the stall stares at him disapprovingly, like she cannot comprehend why someone who looks like him would want to buy expensive flowers. But she accepts his money anyway. The roses smell the same, and look the same, and Mail can almost _see_ the ancient, creaking tyre swing that used to hang from the oak tree at the front of Wammy's House.

He can almost see Mello lazing on it, too. One long leg dangling from the edge of the tyre, toes almost touching the grass, and the other curled underneath him. Book in hand, something ridiculously above his reading-age level, and face hidden behind a curtain of yellow-blonde hair.

Always hidden. Mail wishes he could remember exactly what that face looked like.

"Hey," someone says from beside him. "You okay? You're spacing out."

It's just that lady, the one who lives with them and tries to tell him what to do all the time. Mail shrugs and pushes past her, back to L and Watari, and that man. She follows him, of course. He can't ever seem to get rid of her.

All he wants is to be left alone. Doesn't she _understand_?

"There's a graveyard about a block away," she bleats annoyingly. "Do you want to go there, too?"

Is she stupid?

"He doesn't _have_…" he begins, and then trails off.

Mello isn't actually dead, which is the worst thing of all. He is somewhere, somewhere fiery and horrible, and there is no way in, and no way out.

Eternity is such a long, long time. And there is nothing he can do for Mello. He has no choice but to leave him to suffer his fate.

Some friend Mail turned out to be.

"No graves for those in hell," L articulates, apparently taking pity on him. "Will we just go home, then?"

They seem to be leaving the decisions up to him. He doesn't want their fuckin' _sympathy_, damnit!

The man nudges him.

"You know, my mother always used to say that the sea is everyone's final resting place," he says thoughtfully. "She used to take tributes to the local beach after we lost my grandfather in the war."

It might be the first semi-intelligent thing Mail has ever heard him say.

"It's a twenty minute drive to the coast," L says softly. "Would you like to go?"

Mail hates the way L always looks vaguely guilty around him. He has this stupid complex where he thinks he's Mail's father, or guardian, or something, and really, L should be beyond forming strange attachments to the people around him.

Besides, it's not like Mail even _knew_ him until they both died. Mello and Near had been his favourites, after all.

But still, he's trying to do the things that _normal_ fuckin' people do, and L is offering to help.

"Yeah," Mail replies. "Okay. Let's go."

* * *

According to Raye, normal people are inspired by the sea. They marvel at its vastness, are comforted by the bountiful life it symbolises, and are soothed by the rhythmic sounds of the waves.

To Mail, the water seems cold and dead, barely moving, endlessly deep, stretching off into eternity. He stands very close to the edge of the cliff, leaning over the flimsy safety rail, soil crumbling and slipping beneath his boots. He wonders what would happen if he jumped. He likes to think he would drift forever, finally feeling nothing.

An easy way out.

On countless occasions, he has tried to imagine what hell is like for Mello. He usually thinks of it as a fiery-lava-demons-with-pitchforks sort of traditional hell, which Mello might even be able to handle, but sometimes he worries that he's taunted with an unending supply of chocolate he cannot reach, or that his entire body is covered in scars, or that he's forced to work as a sex slave for Near.

Mail thinks those would be the things that would hurt Mello the most. He just hopes that Satan – or whoever – is too busy shoving red hot pokers up Kira's sorry ass to worry about personalising Mello's torture.

Hell, maybe Mello has even made a deal with Satan, and now owns half of hell. Mail wouldn't put it past him. Heh.

The others are waiting in the car, a respectful distance away. L apparently trusts him not to do anything stupid. And Mail is too tired, anyway. Too tired to die. He wishes he could sleep. He wishes he could stomach food. He wishes he could think about something else, _anything_ else.

He reaches for the rosary, and then thinks better of it and grabs a cigarette instead. He uses one gloved hand as a wind-shield and lights up inexpertly. He can see a dead fish being buffered around by the waves. He thinks that if Mello were trying to communicate with him, he'd send a shark. Right now.

Mail stares at the water intently for a few moments, sucking on the end of his cancer-stick.

No shark comes.

He breathes deeply, and retrieves the flowers from the ground by his feet. They are such a beautiful colour, and there has been nothing beautiful in his world for so long.

That lady told him that if he really wanted to act like a normal person, he would move on. He'd find someone else. He would learn to be satisfied with a different shade of blonde, with an unfamiliar smile, with an unblemished face. He'd _replace_ Mello.

As if that would be better. As if that isn't the worst suggestion in the _world_. He'll grieve until he is completely dead, if that is the alternative. He wants Mello to haunt his every waking hour.

He will never let go.

Unceremoniously, he dumps his armful of flowers over the edge of the railing, and watches them float through the air and land gently in the surf. A moment later they are swallowed by a giant wave, and Mail feels somewhat mollified.

"Hope they're looking after you, doll," he mutters, as if somehow, Mello will hear him.

Eventually L comes, and steers him back to the car, and he goes. There is no point in staying, after all.

* * *

Jas stands on the very edge of a rocky plateau that's technically too small to hold her weight. She is supposed to be schooling the Shinigami, Ryuk, on a job he's agreed to take, but…well.

She can't help but check up on Lawliet and Jeevas, especially when her travels take her right through their current location. She used to be so _good_ at this job, she used to be able to successfully create various appropriate hells without ever affecting the innocent. But times changed, and humans grew more and more intelligent, and now she _needs_ Lawliet, even if it makes his life unpleasant from time to time.

And god, she hopes he can do this. She hopes she has calculated everything correctly. She hopes L isn't _too_ good, because then…

If that happens, she has to accept it. Like every other redemption. Even if she doesn't like it.

And Mail Jeevas is just a consequence. A victim. It's harder with couples, with soul-mates, when one has done terrible things and the other has not.

Plainly speaking, she feels as if she owes him something. It's disgusting, how _attached_ she has become.

Maybe she's finally getting too old for this job.

She reaches into the water, and retrieves a single rose. Still perfect. Still undamaged.

She is supposed to be meeting up with Ryuk before sundown, but this won't take any time at all.

* * *

"Thank you," L says as soon as they are alone. "Thank you for your help today."

Might as well get it over with.

Rae regards him indifferently.

"I don't get it," it tells him eventually. "You're like…_almost_ a good person, but your perspective is slightly fucked."

"I see. I thought I was a corrupt, selfish, psychopathic monster," L quips.

"Yeah, you are. But it would take so little for you to actually be good."

"So little? It's been almost thirty years since I was six years old. That is a lot of time for things to change, Rae."

"I'm not wrong about this," the Shinigami insists, hanging over him from behind. "I've worked out exactly what it is, too."

"Of course you have," L grumbles good-naturedly. He's surprisingly unperturbed by the conversation.

"See, you want to protect innocent people, just not _enough_. And that's because you just don't completely despise evil."

"Oh?"

"It's all because of your mother. See, your guilt at killing her means that you always restrict yourself from unleashing true justice on those who deserve it."

"And by true justice, you undoubtedly mean the death note, correct?" L estimates, smirking.

"I mean everything in your arsenal," Rae argues. "According to my calculations, you are one of the top ten richest individuals in the Western world. You're not exactly short on resources. But yes, now that you have the death note, you ought to be using it."

"I was…somewhat taken aback by the way you didn't mention the death note while we were chasing Marshall," L admits. "I was expecting it."

"Well, I…" Rae says, and then stops and shakes its head. "I…"

"You didn't even think of it," L says with wonder.

_What is this? I do not understand._

"I _told_ you justice was more important than success," Rae snaps, and L is no longer absolutely certain that it is lying.

There is a clock ticking, high up on the wall. The room is dark. The Shinigami does not move, glaring at him defiantly, daring him to comment.

_Are you trying to present yourself as someone trustworthy, or is this…the truth?_

_Am I going mad?_

"Know this," L says with a lot more certainty than he feels. "I will never, _ever_ use that note. As long as it stays with me, you will never be king. But if what you just said is true, then perhaps you will be somewhat contented with simply helping me solve cases."

The death god seems to consider this. L helps himself to another serving of the double-caramel yoghurt sitting on his desk.

"So you admit that you need my help?" it asks, sounding ridiculously pleased.

_You chose to focus on that, Rae?_

"Of course," L says diffidently. "Both your eyes and your mind would be useful to me right now."

"I know you are using this to judge me," Rae informs him. "You're trying to work me out, aren't you? Isn't it sad that after all this time, you still have no idea as to what I really want?"

"Take it or leave it," L whispers, and he meets those blazing eyes for a full minute without even blinking.

"What are you working on?" Rae asks finally.

L isn't sure whether he feels relieved or unnerved by the decision.

"Nothing tonight. I will let you know when a new case comes up," he replies evenly.

* * *

_The Jeevases arrive home late, and they don't tell you why. Gemma has been grizzling for two hours straight, Dwayne's been leaving retarded messages on your phone, and you've been worried sick._

_But here they are. Both of them. Still alive._

_Matt is veritably exhausted. He staggers to the nearest chair and collapses onto it sideways, boots and all. He has a bruise over one eye, and you immediately want to touch it, want to demand to know how he got it, and if there are any others._

_But you don't. It isn't your place._

_Jasmine trails in behind him, two bulging shopping bags hanging from her tiny frame. You don't ask what's in the bags, either, but you do note that she seems to be in a slightly better condition than her husband._

_That's the one thing you hate about Jasmine. That Matt will defend her to the end, throw his life on the line without even a moment's hesitation. _

_You're terrified that one day he will die in an attempt to save her. The Kira case is dangerous, and L loses one or two good agents every month. The statistics are against him._

_You try not to think about it too much._

"_Hey, Mihael," Matt says gruffly, flinging one arm in your direction. "Bring her over here."_

_You hand him his daughter, careful not to touch his arms or hands in the process. Gemma immediately stops whining and curls up on his chest, happily._

"_That's right," he says, smiling down at her with utter, utter fondness. "Daddy's here."_

_You look away. Jasmine notices, of course._

"_I'm sorry we're late," she says gently, kissing you on the cheek. "Thank you for taking such good care of Bub."_

_Bub. She even has a cutesy nickname for her baby. Of course._

"_It's okay," you say gruffly. "Anything I can do to help, you know."_

"_Uh huh," Matt murmurs. "Did you manage to get through the entire day without saying the f-word to her, this time?"_

"_Oh, yeah," you lie. You say 'fuck' at least once every ten sentences. You don't imagine you'll ever be able to hold your tongue, even for Gemma's sake._

_After all, your powers of self control are pretty much non-existent. Jasmine has learned to hide all of the chocolate in the house before you come over to babysit._

_Because you eat other people's food. Because you just suck that much._

_You're ashamed of your life, and your scar, and your failures, and your own stupid fucking crush, and you inability to be a responsible adult. You're ashamed of everything. _

_Some days, you would just like to sleep and never wake up. You're pretty certain they're all just waiting for you to die, anyway. Jasmine, especially, keeps talking about how there are 'better places out there', and you know she knows you don't earn enough to travel overseas._

"_Adubdubdubdub," Gemma says happily, snuggling up under her father's chin. Jasmine reaches over and smacks the back of his leg._

"_Ow! What, baby?"_

"_Shoes," Jasmine reprimands._

"_Kiss first," Matt shoots back._

_Jasmine walks up to where his head rests on the arm of the sofa, and he grins up at her joyfully, and their mouths meet._

_Perfect little family. Perfect couple, perfect baby in between._

"_I…I ought to go," you point out stupidly, and head for the door. _

_Of course, Jasmine catches you before you actually make it outside._

"_Hey, hold on. Haven't you had your licence confiscated?"_

"_Uh, yeah?" you mumble, hanging your head._

"_So you were going to walk? At this time of night?"_

_She sounds horrified._

"_Uh, I was going to call a cab."_

_You were going to walk._

"_Nonsense," Jasmine replies, and retrieves her keys from the hook by the door. "Come on, I'll give you a lift."_

_You squeeze uncomfortably into the front seat of her zippy little hatchback, and pray that she doesn't actually want to talk. No such luck. She opens her mouth before she even pulls out of the driveway._

"_Bad day?" she asks cheerfully._

"_No," you lie. "Gemma behaved good."_

_God, you're so fucking eloquent. Not._

_She laughs._

"_I wasn't referring to Gemma, I was just-"_

"_How did Matt get the black eye?" you demand._

_She winces._

"_We had an altercation with some of Kira's supporters. They were all fairly minor-ranking, from what we can tell. Near managed to take a few into custody, but Kira killed them before we could proceed with questioning."_

"_Shit," you say unthinkingly. "Now that is what you call a bad day."_

"_You shouldn't compare your life to ours, Mihael," she reprimands. "What you feel isn't invalid, you know."_

"_Isn't it?" you ask bitterly. You bet she wouldn't be so supportive if you suddenly said 'hey, I hate your guts and I hate you for existing, and if I had half a chance in hell, I'd probably be trying to steal your husband right now. Oh, and I hate your boss.'_

"_Just because you don't have a glamorous career doesn't mean you're not an equal human being," she continues mercilessly. "I don't like the way Near talks about you, sometimes."_

_It's a trap. You bite your tongue. One word against Near, and you would be gone. Ejected from the entire investigation. Isolated away from Matt, and Gemma, and L, and everyone._

"_None of my business," you reply thickly._

_When she pulls up outside your flat, all the lights are off, and you can immediately tell by the smell that Dwayne has set fire to something expensive. Again._

"_Uh, I gotta go," you tell her, shoving open the door and jumping out of your seat. "Thanks for the ride."_

"_Mihael, wait!" Jasmine yells, clambering out of the car as well, and grabbing you by the arm. "Just one second. I've got something for you."_

_You hope it's wrapped in foil, and at least eighty percent cocoa solids. You're kind of disappointed – and extremely confused – when she hands you a bouquet of flowers instead._

"_Are these seriously for me?" you ask sceptically, before you can stop yourself._

_She laughs and tilts her head. The moonlight reflects off her hair, making it look shiny and ethereal. She's wearing tight-fitting army fatigues and sneakers, and you can see that she hasn't gained an ounce of weight since she gave birth to Gemma._

_You wish Matt had never met her._

_Except then, he wouldn't be happy. Maybe you just wish she wasn't quite so much better than you, in every possible way. Yeah, that would be nice._

"_Well, yeah. I mean, you're always there to look after Bub whenever we need a sitter, and I know Matt can be a thankless asshole at times, and I just wanted you to know that we appreciate you."_

"_Thanks," you say, with as much gratitude as you can muster. She waves enthusiastically, and finally gets back into her car and backs out of the driveway._

_The flowers turn out to be roses. Blue, like the ones that grow at Wammy's House. You wonder if Near got them for her._

_You hope he doesn't have a crush on her. If he hurts Matt – if he even worries Matt – you'll kill the little prick. _

_And then L will probably have you killed and…oh yeah, everyone will be happy again. Why is it that the only bad future scenarios you can imagine are the ones where you lead a long and healthy life?_

_Dwayne will probably just eat the flowers, anyway. You suppose it's the thought that counts._

_

* * *

_

Mail brings his knees up to his chin. Winter is coming, and he's freezing cold.

Christmas is coming too. He hates Christmas. It's like everyone else uses it as an excuse to be excessively cheerful and nosey, and really piss him off.

He stares at the red glow on the end of his cigarette, the only light in the room. He stubs it out on his belt buckle viciously and rolls over. His mattress is covered in ancient stains, and it reeks of sweat and saliva and nicotine.

Back before he died, he used to regularly crawl into Mello's empty bed and fall asleep. They never seemed to keep the same waking hours, and Mello either didn't notice or didn't care, so he'd made a habit of it. The mattress had been old and dank – in poorer condition than the one he has now – but it had always smelled like Mello, and safety, and home.

He cannot recall that smell any more.

Mail is terrified that all of it will fade, eventually, until he can no longer remember Mello's name, or the colour of his eyes, or the things that he said. Until all Mail has left is a dimly-lit world filled with unspeakable grief, and nothing more than a hint, a blur, an idea, to comfort him.

He doesn't ever want to forget. He does not ever want to _move on_. He will hold on to his sorrow until it consumes him.

He will hold on to Mello forever.

He shoves his face into his putrid pillow. Beneath all of it, beneath the loneliness, and the regret, and the misery, and the aching _eternity_ spread out in front of him, there is still attraction. He still _wants_ Mello, plain and simple and animalistic. He still fantasises about Mello's hands on him, sneaking up under the hem of his shirt, blunt nails against his skin. He still imagines shoving his face into that fantastic blonde hair and mouthing the nape of Mello's neck. He still wants Mello to push him up a wall, just once, even if it's a nothing-fuck, a replacement-fuck, a pity-fuck. He wants to sink his teeth into those slender, leather-covered shoulders, just once, dear god, just once.

It gets worse when he gets aroused – and god only knows why _those_ particular organs even remember what they're supposed to do – because he knows he won't finish it. He can't. He _can't_.

He knows that if Mello were to break free from hell and suddenly appear right there on the bed, Mail would just cover himself with the blanket and keep his hands by his sides.

And he'd still give his arms, his happiness, his soul, just to have it happen.

* * *

_Dwayne eventually loses consciousness, while lying sideways over the broken coffee table with his head on the footstool of his recliner. You put the flowers beside your bed before retiring for the night._

_There are so many things you cannot define. Maybe you really are going mad, because you certainly can't explain why you want the roses close to you. Why you don't want to leave them. Flowers don't feel abandonment. You know that. _

_They're not even that pretty. They're watery-blue, crap-blue, the same colour as your stupid eyes. You fall asleep with one arm around Matt's shirt, and the other dangling off the edge of the bed, fingertips touching the bouquet._

_You wake in a blind, insane panic, pumped full of adrenaline and tears in your fucking eyes because you're absolutely convinced someone you love is hurting and you need to do something about it._

_You sit on your tiny bed, in the middle of your shared one-room flat, and try to force yourself to calm the fuck down._

_You don't. You can't. You take the flowers from the floor and cradle them in your arms, as if that will help, as if you haven't gone completely fucking insane, and there are veritable fucking waterfalls leaking from the corners of your eyes, and you feel like someone has died._

_You fumble with your phone, and manage to call the Jeevases without hurting yourself, or anyone else in the room. _

_Jasmine answers. Of course.  
_

"_Mihael, what is it?" she asks, equal parts sleepy and concerned. "It's one am."_

"_Why have you done this?' you demand. Your hands are shaking and you can't stop them._

"_Done what?"_

_You touch the petals of the smallest rose, so fragile, breaking, falling apart. You don't know. You have no excuse, no explanation. You might as well just say it and be done._

"_These flowers," you say shakily. "They're so…sad. Why did you give me such sad flowers?"_

_She doesn't reply straight away. The silence seems to stretch on for an eternity, and you wonder if she has instructed Matt to call the local asylum to come and take you away while she keeps you on the line._

"_They are yours, Mihael," she says, finally. "They are yours to have."_

"_I don't want them!" you snap vehemently. They're confusing you and convincing you that other people are dying. They're clearly part of Near's plot to be rid of your completely._

"_Yes you do," she says firmly. "Now go back to sleep."_

_She hangs up with a neat little click, and you're left with a dead phone, and a tremendous desire to protect some unknown person from something, and no idea what to do._

_In the dim light of the room, the flowers seem achingly sad and lonely. You pull them back under the covers with you._

_It's stupid, but whatever. They're your fucking flowers, after all._

_You dream. You see L, only he's been hurt, and his confidence has been shattered. You see a whole lot of people you don't know, wandering around and doing normal things and dying. You see Wammy himself, only instead of torturing people, he's baking a cake. You see Matt, thrown across a filthy mattress like a ragdoll, so skeletal he looks almost dead._

_You sit bolt upright, sobbing, and reach for your phone._

_He answers this time, thank god._

"_What is it, Mihael?" he asks gruffly._

"_Are…are you okay?" you whisper._

"_Am I okay? I'm not the one calling people at three in the morning and waking the baby!" he says hotly. "Seriously, just go to sleep."  
_

"_You sure you're okay?" you press, because you really are a retard, apparently._

"_Look, dude, you're my friend and everything, but I'm about five seconds from blowing an airhorn down the phone, okay?"_

"_Okay," you gulp, and he disconnects._

_Five seconds later, you think of something else you wanted to say, and call him back._

"_I am switching off my phone after this," he announces._

"_Okay," you say feebly. "I just. Make sure you always get enough to eat, okay? And if you're sick, please go to the doctor straight away."_

"_Hanging up now," he tells you. "Oh, and once you've come down? Try and think about sticking to the legal stuff from now on."_

_Click._

_He thinks you're on drugs. You don't blame him. You feel like you're on drugs, too._

_Things feel more normal once he hangs up, and you even think you might be able to go back to sleep. And then your hand bumps one of the roses, and you are overwhelmed by the rush of grief and pain and Matt._

_You realise with a start that he has lost someone. Someone important, like, the love of his life or something. Jasmine, probably. Maybe Gemma. Maybe both of them._

_You call him again, but he doesn't answer. There is no option to leave a message. You try to quell the hysteria that's rising up in your chest. Just because you cannot contact him right now doesn't mean anything bad is going to happen._

_And yet, your fingers hit redial, all by themselves. Over, and over, and over again. You can't stop. You need to know that he's okay. You need to hear his voice. You need that connection. You need something._

_You call him two hundred and sixteen times, and you still can't get through._

_When the sun peeks in through the window, and bleaches the rubbish on the floor and Dwayne's white face, you get up and throw the flowers in the trashcan._

_Five minutes later, you scoop them out, and shove them in a glass of water._

_They might be depressing and psychosis-inducing, but they're yours. Someone bought them just for you._

_

* * *

_

Mail kicks at his covers, more out of boredom than anything else. He isn't sure whether he's hot or cold. L grunts and shifts slightly. The older man is perched on the edge of his bed, because he decided at four in the morning that they 'should spend more time together'.

Like Mail can't see right through that lie. L is worried about him, more than before. Before, at least, Mail was stagnating, the same behaviour every day, over and over. Now L is unsettled by how he's changed, as if it isn't okay that he fucking wants a break.

And he fucking wants a break.

Only he's going to love Mello until his mind fucking falls apart, and this is all pointless, but he's going to do it anyway. He's going to try what he can try, he's going to pretend he's just a normal person, just for the fucking _diversion_ of it. Just in some hope of easing the painful, hammer-blow drill of monotonic distress that he's lived with every day.

L is typing methodically, thumb pressed to his lips, his round grey eye absolutely focused on the screen before him.

L does strange things sometimes, too. They started about four years ago, Mail thinks, and he cannot even hypothesise as to what they mean. But L seems to stop, and listen to the empty air every so often. Sometimes he moves his lips, in what Mail might consider a mockery of his own desperate prayers, except that L only seems to do it when he thinks no-one is paying him any attention.

The closest ordinary non-genius behaviour to which Mail can approximate L's actions, is of someone with an imaginary friend.

Didn't snotty-leaking-kid have an imaginary friend? He can't remember. He never paid her much attention.

He doesn't really care whether L is concealing some freaky-ass gorgon thing. He's not bothered by monsters, not really, not except for _Takada_, and her fucking book, and her fucking _god_ that _killed his boy_.

He can't even bear to think about it for long. He hopes she's in hell, burning, and a long, long way away from Mello. He hopes she never stops screaming. He hopes the fucking Shinigami suffers and rots and dies.

He still wants to burn down the Tracking Library. He wants revenge. He wants something.

L shifts again, and his presence is such a small comfort as to be almost completely nonexistent.

Mail is suddenly struck by a desire to check his phone, so he pulls it out of the back pocket of his too-tight, filthy black jeans. The dim green light nearly blinds him, and the tiny black letters spell out the time, date, present GPS location, and phone company logo.

_No missed calls_. No surprise. He doesn't know why he has these strange urges, sometimes.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ all I ever seem to say is 'ohmygodthisissoharddon''. but yeah. merry christmas, everybody. there is a more christmas-y chapter coming up next, but it will probably be a week or two late, because I fail like that.

+ just wanted to add, I love and adore Mello and hate that he's going through this crap. same with Matt. unfortunately, it's needed for the story at this point.

+ thank you. you are all so wonderful and kind, and thank you.


	23. Weakness

notes/warnings

+ swearing

+ consumption of alcohol

+ vague mentions of suicide

+ here be the obligatory sort-of-festive chapter, which is now over a week late. but I had a lot of fun writing it, so hopefully it will also be somewhat enjoyable to read. happy new year, everybody!

music: _i think i like it_, by fake blood

* * *

**Weakness**

As the world outside L's headquarters enters the festive season, Watari's culinary pursuits become more and more Christmas-oriented. So far this year, he has made cherry-and-almond fruitcake, coconut-ice fudge, and spearmint candy canes. Now he has constructed an honest-to-god gingerbread house as big as an en-suite.

So L does the only sensible thing he can think of.

He moves in.

"This is the least mature thing you have ever done," Rae says disapprovingly, sulking in one delicious syrup-flavoured corner.

L breaks off a lump of cement icing as big as his fist, and crunches it pointedly. The death god snorts and turns away.

"And _why_ all the sugar, anyway? Don't you ever want to eat anything else?"

L thinks that is perhaps the most unnecessary question he has ever encountered.

"Why would I want to do that?" he asks happily.

"Because most people do. Seriously, have you ever eaten savoury food in your life?"

L points one accusing finger in its general direction.

"Never say that word in my presence again," he declares, and then inserts a pinch of gingerbread into his mouth with exaggerated reverence.

"What, savoury? Savoury, savoury, savoury, savoury."

L throws his pen at the Shinigami's head. It bounces off with a jaunty _click_.

"Too slow," L grins. "Didn't make yourself immaterial in time."

"_Fuck_ you."

"Oh, your words, they wound me. I shall have to use the death note now, my resolve has been flattened by the sheer magnitude of your witty reply," L replies dramatically. He is rather enjoying this.

"I will kill you, in the end," Rae snaps balefully.

"Such a long way away," L replies. "It isn't even Christmas yet."

"I can wait, you know."

"Fascinating," L murmurs, and swivels his computer around so that both of them can view the screen. "What do you think of this autopsy report?"

Rae scans the screen briefly, and then reaches for the mouse.

"Huh. Blunt instrument wasn't the cause of death. Based on the wounds around the neck, the victim was probably garroted before being beaten."

"Which means it wasn't the husband," L continues.

"So it must be the grandmother," Rae finishes. "Shit. They've got the wrong person in custody."

"I'm glad you agree," L replies cheerfully. Working with Rae makes him feel ridiculously validated, sometimes. "I will contact the police right away."

* * *

L is busy celebrating his successful case from yesterday - a celebration which mostly involves attempting to give himself type two diabetes - when Rae raps on the door of his half-eaten gingerbread cottage.

"Wha iff it?" L asks, around a mouthful of gooey cake.

"Hallo, wicked old witch," Rae beams. "Thought you might like to know that the serial rapist situation in Sydney is continuing to get worse, and the federal police are completely incapable of catching the perpetrator."

L groans. He is really not ready to go back to Australia yet. Too many memories of Grace.

"Have they given him a nickname yet?"

"Negative," Rae confirms. "But this is your sort of case, right?"

"You do not choose my cases for me," L warns the death god. "And I only take cases in which I am personally interested."

"Uh huh," Rae says, examining his face sceptically. L looks away. "The two most recent victims were a Mrs Vicky Jones, attacked just outside the Droughtmaster Hotel, Newcastle, and a Ms Lisa Fu, attacked inside her own home in Ipswich."

"And I'm a terrible person for not immediately jetting down there and saving whatever poor woman is next on his list, am I right?" L enquires boredly. He pulls a piece of white chocolate from the ground beside his feet and sucks on it.

"Well, I thought you might care to know that both incidents occurred last night. Between nine fifty-two and nine fifty-seven pm. Both of them. Apparently, there is preliminary DNA evidence to support the time of the attacks, and the fact that it was the same attacker."

L blinks.

"In two places at once?" he murmurs, pressing his thumb to his lower lip and gazing at his sticky ceiling. "Oh."

Rae shoves its face into his personal space, staring into his one good eye with both of its own.

"You're interested," it says decisively. "Better get your team together, Miss Marple."

* * *

Forty-eight hours later, he's sitting in another revoltingly warm Australian hotel room, shuffling through a pile of case reports.

"How did you even find out about this case?" Raye asks admiringly. "It hasn't even made international news."

L isn't about to tell him that he keeps company with a probably-evil Shinigami that spends most of its free time scouring the news pages on the internet, and therefore picks up on potential cases before they even reach the headlines. Instead, he gives Raye his best withering, one-eyed stare, and diverts his attention back to the piece of paper dangling from his fingers. He cannot read for hours on end any more. He cannot do a lot of things the way he used to.

"I don't understand at all," Naomi says, frowning. "Clearly the DNA is being planted by a number of rapists onto different victims, right? But if they're trying to frame this guy, why schedule two attacks so implausibly close together?"

"Because this person has wronged many other people, perhaps through one or more sexual or other crimes that never made it to court," L theorises. "Or perhaps he is already a dead man, and this is simply a pack of criminals attempting to escape being caught by confusing the evidence. Or alternatively, there is no conspiracy at all, and we are simply dealing with -"

"Two people with similar DNA in two different places," Rae says quickly. "Two rapists. Identical twins."

"Twins," L finishes, staring up at his Shinigami in amusement. "Yes. Twins."

"Actually, based on the witness statements," Naomi comments, "that would make a lot of sense."

* * *

L stops off in Brisbane on the way home, for no reason other than the fact that some thoughtful and misguided soul has placed little tributes in memory of all the victims of Steve. He visits the cemetery on his own, and finds Grace's plaque wedged between the graves of her parents.

He has never really understood the term '_pay your respects'_. Why would the dead want respect from the living? They are either completely inanimate and rotting, or in some new and removed world.

L hopes the next world is different from this one. He hopes it has monsters for Grace, and ridiculous sandwiches for Matsuda, and...

He hangs his head. Grace's tribute is woefully inadequate, and simply reads '_this beautiful little girl is safe with her parents_'. It does not mention pears, or complicated hairstyles, or giant skellingtons, or toffee overdoses, and L thinks that perhaps whoever it was shouldn't have written anything at all. What good is a generic epitaph? They might as well have left a blank space.

"Don't tell me you actually miss her," Rae says, without any real venom in its voice. It ambles over to him, picking its way through mounds of dirt and decaying flowers.

"Of course I do," he replies softly.

The wind is howling through the trees. He wishes it would rain. He wishes for a lot of things, really. He hates the fact that if he had been forced to choose between saving Grace and saving Mello, Grace would still be dead. Aren't decent people supposed to save children over adults?

L has always considered one life to have equal value to any other, young or old. Maybe that makes him evil, too. He ought to ask Rae.

"Yeah," the Shinigami admits awkwardly. "Me too."

"I understand why you hate me," L tells it. "She helped me to understand. I am flawed."

"To err is human," Rae replies diplomatically, completely out of character, and L squints up at it.

"Why were you so upset when she was taken?" he demands. "Surely you knew when she would die."

The death god moves until it is standing directly in front of him, bladed wings stretching skyward.

"Do you honestly not remember? Her name and lifespan became blurred before her death."

L touches his chin.

"I do recall that," he says politely. "I presume her unusual condition was somehow caused by the gorgon?"

"I'm sure it was," Rae says, sounding far too confident. L shoves his thumb between his teeth.

_You are not sure at all_, he thinks. And the more he thinks about the gorgon case, the more it unnerves him. And it's not just Grace, or Rae's sight, or the loss of his own eye. It's...well, everything. He cannot locate a single police report on Holland, or any details about the man being kept in custody.

Of course, he knows intellectually that no justice system - Australian or otherwise - would ever lose Holland or even grant the man bail. It's not possible that he has escaped, so it must simply be that Mail's hacking skills are not yet sufficient to access the top-security police files in this country.

All the same, it makes him uneasy. Because it's...it's not just..it's...

He has trouble, sometimes, remembering Holland. Remembering the final details of that awful case. And it was barely six months ago, there's no _reason_ he ought to be forgetting, and yet every time he thinks about it, his mind just relaxes, as if...

As if he is being tampered with.

"But even so," he continues evenly. "You would have viewed her life span prior to her unusual symptoms, correct?"

"Of course. I knew she was going to die soon," Rae snaps, suddenly defensive. "But she didn't have to die like _that_, for fuck's sake."

L does not rise to the bait, or try to reroute the blame that Rae is subtly applying to him. Something has become apparent to him, something he had previously overlooked.

"Soon?" he echoes, incredulously, and the death god stares at him. "Soon? What is 'soon'? I thought your kind knew time of death to the absolute_ second_. Why, then, did you not stop looking for her the instant that she died?"

"Oh, shut up," Rae snarls. "I don't need your pseudo-sanctimonious attitude, Lawliet. We Shinigami are not as simple as you might imagine. The time of death of a human being is not an easy thought to hold on to, when visual cues are removed."

"You...forgot," L states, eyes wide. "You...you forgot her time of death? But you had seen it within a week of her death. And you cared for her, surely the _last_ thing you'd want would be to forget...oh. Oh. Is it some sort of defensive mechanism? You will be utterly disassembled if you save a human, so you lose the ability to know time of death of anyone you care about?"

"No! I just...I told you, it isn't easy to remember."

_Not easy to remember_.

"Yes," L replies finally, mind racing. "I know what you mean."

_Stranger, and stranger still._

Something is not right.

* * *

Apparently, all the criminal masterminds are working extra hard over the festive season, because he's barely touch down in London before L has a rather panicked FBI agent on the phone. Government diplomat suspected of selling classified information to Saudi Arabia. A horribly political situation he'd rather not get caught up in.

"If we were to get caught spying on the suspect, there is a seventy-one percent chance that the resulting international incident would be unacceptably drastic and damaging," L murmurs.

"That's why we're calling _you_," the woman replies shakily. She introduced herself as Eli Denwood, but L is fairly sure it's an alias. "If anyone can pull this off with a minimum of risk, it's _you_, L."

"What part of seventy-one percent do you misunderstand?" L asks irritably.

His bad eye is aching, and he's tired and emotional. He wants a day off, but he isn't sure what he'd do with it. And Mail's face is so pale it's almost grey, and he keeps staring off into space for hours at a time and then making ridiculous, vaguely-hopeful suggestions about what 'normal people do'.

He breaks L's heart, every second of every day. L suspects that probably means he loves Mail a heck of a lot more than he admits to himself.

His son, after all. His son. The only one he has left.

"But _you_ would have a way, right?" supposedly-Denwood bleats. "You always have a way. Money is no object."

"No, but international security _is_," L tells her fiercely.

A thin hand closes over his shoulder.

"You have agents that would not get caught, you know," Rae whispers. "One hundred percent guaranteed."

L stares at the Shinigami blankly.

_You. What are you up to?_

"Of course, if I do manage to find evidence, the FBI will eventually either have to accuse him and deal with the political consequences, or…ignore him."

"One moment," L says, and places maybe-Denwood on hold. "That is precisely why I don't want to get involved in this matter, Rae. There would be no easy resolution, no matter what we do, no matter how hard the evidence."

"Unless, if guilty, he inexplicably died. That would be beneficial," Rae leers, and L scowls at it.

"Sometimes you are very little help, Shinigami," he says darkly, his own mind already racing, sorting through the options and possibilities.

_If we find this man innocent – or even if we don't – we could abort a lot of bad feelings and perhaps avoid a lot of collateral damage by coming up with a neutral result._

Even if L edits his progress report significantly, he himself should probably know whether the diplomat is a spy or not. Yes. He reaches for the phone.

"You'll do it," Rae says lightly. "You'll do it. I know you."

L really wishes it couldn't predict him quite so accurately.

* * *

Rae's evidence points to the diplomat having nothing more than a healthy – and expected – interest in foreign affairs. L is somewhat surprised that the death god hasn't attempted to lie in order to convince him to use the note.

As far as Rae's morality goes, he has come to just one firm conclusion. It is this: for now, he will reserve judgement. The Shinigami will prove itself, one way or the other. People always do.

The next case is fairly clear-cut, a hacker of unknown identity who has stolen millions of pounds through use of online banking websites. L and Mail spend three days straight researching and gathering data. L doesn't move from his chair, body stiff from crouching, fingers cramped from typing, eyes gritty from lack of sleep. He tells himself that he's just interested, and dedicated, and that he wants Mail to be successful.

The truth is, _he_ wants to work this one out. Rae helping is all very well and good, and L is grateful for its support, really, but.

But L is still the best.

And he needs to prove that, because. Because he does.

He eats six kilograms of crème brulee, and in the end, it is still the Shinigami who finds the clue. The key to the hacker's identity. The tiny error in coding that L should have seen.

Should have seen.

* * *

It doesn't stop there. The Swedish government contacts him about a sudden outbreak in strange psychotic illnesses in Stockholm city. L packs up his team and goes, without a second thought. Within two days, he has collected exhaustive case reports on all nineteen affected citizens, including all movements and interactions over the past five weeks.

He spends about half an hour searching for common events before Rae works it out.

"It's the Golden Day Pharmacy," it says confidently. "Every single case has visited there in the past few weeks. That, coupled with the complete lack of genetic inclination and medical history of mental illness, and I'd say that...shit."

"What?" L asks loudly, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

"Every single victim is female," Rae announces. "And each of them bought a particular brand of contraceptive pill on their last visit to the pharmacy. L, is it possible that -"

"The pill is spiked," L says, a revelation.

And sure enough, a day later an assay reveals that a whole batch of oestrogen-based medication has been tainted with a psychosis-inducing antidepressant, and they have a disgruntled and terrifyingly insane drug-company employee in custody.

Another case closed. L wishes he could feel better about the whole situation.

* * *

L winds up solving five cases between the beginning of December, and Christmas. One every four days. A new record for him.

"Huh. The pattern for the latest murder-suicide doesn't fit," Rae muses. "The victim died too slowly. I'm suspicious it might be a copycat."

Except…it's not really _his_ record. The Shinigami is responsible for most – if not all – of their recent successes. L is painfully aware of that.

Rae is presently sprawled in front of his computer, with most of his notes spread out on the floor beside it, and a pencil between its bleached-white jaws. It is obviously deep in thought. It is also sitting in _his_ spot.

And it just came to the same conclusion that he'd been about to voice. Really.

"When I asked you for your help," L says petulantly, "I didn't mean you could just take over from me, you know."

"Mm," the death god replies dismissively. "I still can't decide if the autopsy report is a fake, though. We think some of the cult leaders are in the medical field, right?"

L snatches the sheaf of paper from its bony fingertips, absolutely aware that he is acting like a child. Immaturity is his goddamned right, his one pay-off for the constant stress and danger of his job, and he'll throw a tantrum if he wants to.

"Hey!"

"_You_," L says sharply, and then stops, heavy with the realisation that he's too tired to have this fight.

What is he going to say? _Stop being better than me? Stop catching criminals so I can re-align my wilting ego? Stop acting like a reasonable person, it's creepy?_

This…this is his problem. He is becoming outdated. Becoming old. L knows he used to be capable of solving cases faster than the Shinigami could keep up.

So either he's gotten worse, Rae has improved, or Rae…actually hasn't changed, and simply wasn't applying itself before.

"Me what?" Rae challenges, and L feels another wave of exasperation at the fact that it hasn't lost its temper with him.

"I still won't use the note," he replies, uselessly vicious, hand snapping open and shut at his side.

Rae squints at him.

"Yeah, okay. And this is your, what, seventh night without sleep?"

Ah. Right. That might explain some portion of his foul mood, then.

Not that he's about to admit to it.

"Do not change the subject," he replies harshly. "I do not yet understand this new game, Shinigami, but I promise you, you will _lose_."

He has beaten people before, without knowing all of the rules.

The one and only time he and Rae played chess, they wound up with a stalemate.

The next time, L needs to _win_.

* * *

L sleeps fitfully, tossing from side to side, jerking himself almost awake every fifteen minutes or so. When he dreams, he dreams of his mother, thick black hair pouring over her shoulders, perfectly manicured hand wrapped around his own like a vice. He is always small, in his dreams of her, always six years old, always weak and frightened.

And she smiles at him – a feral smile, _Light's_ smile – and he looks away from her face and sees the people milling all around them. A whole room full of ordinary people, unsuspecting and busy, oblivious to the madly-grinning woman and the uncomfortable boy. And then he sees bomb in her hand, intricately crafted, already counting down.

The perfect weapon.

She turns to him and ruffles his hair, and the little screen counts from six to five, and then she's holding him, holding him in her arms as the bomb goes off and blows everyone away, so many people.

L sits bolt upright, cold sweat plastering his shirt to his back, hands shaking in his lap.

_It was only a nightmare_, he tells himself firmly, but he feels utterly wrecked, all the same. He always dreams about _her_ when he's feeling less than confident, when things are getting bad. He has never truly been able to escape her. If she could see him right now, struggling with cases, being routinely outclassed by a psychopathic monster, she'd laugh so hard she'd probably fall over.

She always had high expectations of him, after all.

In all his six years of knowing her, he never once worked out how to disarm her explosives. She had a way of making them so complex that they were practically impenetrable.

Even to him. Especially to him.

And he knows he will not beat her twice. If he ever runs into her again, she will end him. And everyone around him. Just to prove a point. She will set a trap that he cannot fathom, and laugh at him as he becomes more and more frustrated and panicked, and watch the light die from his eyes as his heart gives out in his chest, and...

Oh yes, the Shyster could beat him. Easily. She is the single most dangerous thing he has ever known. Far more dangerous than any little boy with a book.

But in his nightmares, she is always wearing an expression that never belonged to her, and she always holds him when he dies. Because even now, even _knowing_ she is the one person he ought to fear above all others, it is still Light that chills him to the core.

If hell ever cracks open above his head, and he has to fight with one of them, he'd choose his mother any day. Just so he never has to see that face again.

"Fuck!"

He is oddly comforted by Rae's single, emphatic utterance, and he lets himself relax a little, curling against the head of his bed.

"What is it?" he asks, mostly for something to say.

"Nothing new," Rae mutters, and it sounds the way he feels, unbalanced and unnerved, like it isn't quite awake.

"I have a theory," L tells it softly. "The more thoughtful the individual, the more vivid the nightmare."

"Huh," Rae muses. "So what's _your_ excuse, then?"

L manages a watery smile.

"Very funny."

"Yeah," Rae says, miserably.

"Yeah," L agrees uselessly, and the conversation stalls after that.

L inwardly curses his good memory, and wishes he could not recall the cold, smooth texture of his mother's wedding ring digging into his wrist. Or the exact scent of Light's cologne, musk and peppermint and spice, some brand that is still popular in much of the Eastern world that makes him want to throw up every time he smells it on some unknowing passer-by.

He wants to forget.

"You ought to go back to sleep," Rae says finally, and it still sounds distant and distracted. "You're still grumpy."

"I dreamed about my mother," L says, without really thinking about it. "I think maybe I need to start medicating myself so I can sleep properly."

Because enough is enough. He shouldn't be haunted by people he's already beaten, by people who will spend the rest of eternity in hell. He's being silly even theorising about meeting them again. They are both gone, lost, buried. Forever.

He hopes.

"At least you have that option," Rae replies bitterly, shifting against the wall. "I don't even fucking understand that boy. I don't know what he wants!"

"What boy?" L queries gently, sinking back into his own mattress. Rae might be a murderous, egotistical, hell-eyed skeleton-god, but it is neither Light nor Emma, and that is all he cares about right now.

"The boy from the room!" Rae replies, as if he ought to know already.

L blinks at the ceiling a few times. That nagging feeling is back with a vengeance, reminding him that he's still uncertain as to whether or not the death god's situation is ultimately a lie.

Because if it is, he doesn't think Rae knows.

"What room?" he prompts, as encouragingly as he can manage. "Tell me what happens in this waking nightmare of yours. I might be able to help you figure it out."

"There's nothing to figure out," the Shinigami complains. "I know what it is. It's some sort of test, or something. I think the king keeps sending it to me as a measure of consistency. It's just…that _boy_. He's starting to annoy me."

"Oh?"

Rae lifts its head and stares at him for a long moment. L thinks its eyes might be slightly duller than usual.

"Fine," it sighs. "Whatever. It's not like we've got anything better to do, not since _I_ solved the murder-suicide case."

That comment stings, but L doesn't let it show on his face. No point giving Rae the satisfaction, after all.

"You already know about my fears," L points out mildly. "You could give something back, you know."

"You could use the death note, you know," Rae fires back.

"Yes, I could," L agrees. "This boy?"

"Look, I don't know who the fuck he is, or anything. I have this…vague, vague recollection that I might have met him once before, a long time ago, but I don't understand why it's _him_ in my dream."

"I see."

Rae folds its long legs up underneath itself, until it is sitting cross-legged, the way that L never does. It props its elbows up on its knees, clearly unhappy.

"So, it always goes exactly the same. I'm sitting on a chair-"

"A chair, or a throne?"

"A chair, douche. Are you listening, or not?"

"I am."

"I start out sitting on an _ordinary_ chair in some unidentified room, high up off the ground. To my immediate left is a window, large enough to take up half the wall, and clean enough that one could mistake it for an open space."

It has mentioned windows before. L sticks his thumb in his mouth and adjusts his posture for maximum comfort. Knowing how much Rae loves the sound of its own voice, this might take a while.

"I see."

"And there's someone else sitting to my right, but I don't really pay them much attention at the start. They're sitting on a chair, identical to mine. There is nothing else in the room. No humans, no furniture, no other gods. No doors. No way out. And I'm always looking straight ahead, at the wall."

"This is possibly the most boring nightmare I have ever heard," L notes primly.

"Tell me about it. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the window represents my future kingdom. The view from it is amazing. You can see for miles and miles, all greenery and buildings. In the dream, I know all of this without actually shifting my gaze from the wall."

"The view is of the human world, then?" L estimates.

"Yes."

_Does this mean you believe that one day Shinigami will rule our worlds, as well?_

_We will see about that.  
_

"Strange. So then what?"

"There is…this thing," Rae says, with palpable reverence. "Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of this glittering, wonderous thing. Outside. On the ground. Underneath my window."

"Your crown?"

"It must be," Rae agrees. "And that's why the rest doesn't make any sense at all. I move to turn my head so I can see the thing properly, and this _stupid_ kid grabs my right shoulder, so I look at him instead."

"But you don't know who he is?"

"I think…the one time I met him…he was important, somehow?" Rae asks, rubbing its forehead. "But I can't imagine how. It must have been a long time ago."

"So he stops you from looking at your crown, and you think that means you might fail in your quest," L surmises. "Are you sure he isn't me?"

"He is _definitely_ not you," Rae says firmly. "He bothers me because, in the dream, I care about what he thinks, at least a little. And he always says the same thing."

"Yes?"

"_Don't look_," Rae repeats, in a high, whiny voice. "_Don't look out the window_. Why wouldn't I look? Who is he to tell me what to do?"

"How old is this child?"

"I don't know. Sixteen? Seventeen?"

L raises his eyebrows.

"Older than I expected. So what do you do?"

"I always look," Rae says proudly. "I never let him get to me. I always look. And the thing…it's amazing. I never quite make out the shape of it, but it is my future. My everything. I spend hours sometimes, just staring at it. It is wonderful."

"And this is what you call a _bad_ dream?"

"That bit is not bad," Rae says amenably. "But then, eventually, I want to see what his reaction is. I want him to see that I defied him. I want him to know he can't order me around. So I look to my right once more – just for a moment – and he's…he's always."

"Turned into something else?"

"Gone, L. He's always gone. No doors. No other windows. And…the chair is gone, too. It's as if he was never there. It's impossible."

"But he is the one you have to beat, in order to become king, right?" L queries uncertainly. "Isn't it good, that he's gone?"

"Of course it is," Rae says fiercely. "In the dream, I am bereft, but I am convinced that is just part of the test. I think the Shinigami king is presenting me with someone I cared about a long time ago, so that I might prove I am unaffected by human persuasion."

"That is still odd," L counters. "Why would the king test you in so many different ways? Why are your rules so very different from every other member of your kind, Rae? Why are there so many things you do not know?"

"Do not know?" Rae parrots. "What is that supposed to mean? I know everything there is _to_ know, Lawliet."

"Well, I intend to test that statement in a moment," L says, because he has had _enough_ of this. "But first, I want you to answer me one question, honestly. Just one. Just once."

"Eh, depends on the question."

"Are you, or were you ever, human?" L enunciates, peering at the Shinigami's face. It is unlikely. Rae does not behave like any sort of human he has ever met. But the circumstances are so strange, and so many unusual things have been happening, and sometimes he feels like Rae is being railroaded into something, and he just. He wants to know. Because he despises the idea of hell, and he's prepared to help practically anyone escape from the place.

Practically.

"What?" Rae asks, with a surprised little laugh. "What? No. I have always been a god."

L studies the death god for a few seconds, but its visage belies nothing, and the change in eye colour can probably be attributed to the moonlight that bleaches the room.

Besides, it's the answer he predicted. There is only a six percent chance that Rae is human.

"All right," he concedes. "Then I believe that your king is playing games with you."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. If you want to prove me incorrect, please tell me what you know about redemption?"

"Redemption?" Rae snorts. "Do you want a general definition of the word, or are you referring to something specific?"

_Why don't you know? I don't understand._

_Or is this an elaborate ploy to earn my sympathy? Are you that clever, Rae?_

_Am I that stupid?_

"I see," L murmurs. "You see, Rae, other Shinigami know that redemption is a phenomenon associated directly with hell, by which those who are sentenced to hell are given one opportunity to prove themselves a good person. If they are successful, they are released into the next world, whatever that is."

Rae stares at him, open-mouthed.

"You're making this up," it tells him. "Aren't you?"

"Rem told me about it," L whispers. "I do not understand why, or how, it has been kept from you for so long. Were you...always designated to be the future king? Have your people put so much effort into testing you? Or is this some sort of practical joke, Rae?"

Rae shakes its head slowly, clearly trying to process the implications of what L has just said.

"So…you're telling me that every human gets a chance to get _out_ of hell?" it asks carefully.

"Yes."

"When? After how many days?"

"That is not known to them, or to anyone else. According to Rem, great effort is made to prevent people from knowing when their chance will occur, lest they be able to lie to save themselves."

"So for anyone in hell, this chance could come hundreds, possibly thousands, of years later?" the death god sputters.

"From what I understand of it, that is correct," L informs it. "Even if you have been a Shinigami for half an eternity, if you were ever human, you might still be in hell, awaiting testing."

"And if they fail the test?"

"Hell, forever."

Rae gets up from the floor and comes at him suddenly, hovering so that their faces are about an inch apart, expression so intense L's eye hurts just looking at it.

"And if they pass…they die and go to the third world?" it repeats. "Just making sure I have this straight."

"Correct again," L tells it quietly. "You ought to go to your leader, and demand to know why he has kept you in the dark. This makes no sense to me, Rae."

Rae moves back a little, eyes darting from side to side, wearing the same expression as it does when it's trying to solve a particularly difficult case.

And then it stops, and lets out a bark of laughter.

L frowns.

"Is something funny?"

"You," Rae manages. "Oh god. You."

It devolves into high-pitched, hysterical giggles, clutching its sides and collapsing theatrically back onto the floor. L watches in bemusement.

_Now what? If this was part of your ploy to earn my trust, you've just given everything away_.

"You," Rae breathes, wiping its eyes. "You…and to think I was actually _worried_. To think I've been trying all this time for no good reason. Hah. The king must have been laughing himself _sick_ at me. Ha. And all along, he's assigned me an easy task. I don't even have to do anything at all!"

"What do you mean?" L asks suspiciously.

"Thank you, L Lawliet," the Shinigami replies sweetly. "Now I can relax. Now that I know you will _definitely_ use the death note."

* * *

This is awesome. This is possibly the most awesome thing _ever_.

He's late, and the queen always gets annoyed when he is late, and she's hilarious when she's annoyed, so he's kinda looking forward to seeing her again.

Sure enough, she appears beside him suddenly, as if summoned by thought, her dinky little angel-wings rustling gently in the breeze.

"Heya," he says brightly.

"You are late," she replies pettily, frowning and crossing her arms. She's tiny. He doesn't understand why the others are so afraid of her, really. He's always just found her to be kind of...cool.

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that," he says flippantly. He holds out one hand, showing off his latest treasure. "But have you _seen_ this stuff? Definitely worth being late for. It's like, human-world apples, right? But not only are they covered in sugar-water, they're wrapped in sweet bread!"

The queen sighs.

"That is called an apple pie, Ryuk."

"I know! I wish I had discovered it years ago. I would have never left the human realm."

That lady made some for him. She is officially his most favourite human. She promised to keep him entertained forever, and so far, she's kept her word beautifully.

Humans are so much fun.

She won't be happy that the queen has summoned him back here to the second world again, and Ryuk hopes this meeting won't take too long. Of course, his new assignment will start soon, and that will take up a lot of his time, too. Travelling between the different human worlds is tricky and annoying, but he'll have to do it. He doesn't want his newest friend to get upset and ignore him.

"You scarcely leave the human realm anyway," Jas informs him haughtily. "Don't think that anything you do gets past me, Ryuk."

He has to fight to keep the smile from his face.

_Oh really, queenie? _

"Of course," he says aloud, and shoves the piece of pie sideways into his mouth. "Mmmmnnnhhhmmm!"

"Believe it or not," she says icily, "I didn't call you out here to discuss the finer points of human pastries."

"Mmfff?"

He's not really listening. The flavour is explosively fantastic, the texture divine.

He needs to get some more.

"You have sixty days before your next job begins," Jas tells him. "You need to remember to accrue enough human lives to ensure you can go for several months without using your note."

"Eh?" he asks, confused. "Aren't you going to give me a second note for this?"

"No. The king has issued an explicit order. No more extra death notes for you."

"Awww," he complains. "Why am I even doing this job for you, if there's nothing in it for me?"

The queen regards him intently.

"All Shinigami must work for me as required," she informs him briskly. "That is part of your dues, Ryuk. None of the others are paid. I traded you favours because I believed you and I were somewhat close."

_Believed? Past tense? Uh oh. Is she on to me?_

"Why do you need us, anyway?" he asks, jovially trying to change the subject. "You're omnipotent, aren't you? Why don't you do everything and leave us out of it altogether?"

"I never claimed to be omnipotent," the queen snaps. "I am talented and powerful, but that is not the same thing."

"And that's why some humans are involved in the hells of other humans, and that sort of thing, is that right?" he asks. "Because you're too weak to do everything."

"I am not _weak_," she hisses. "And I tire of speaking with you. Here, this is your script. Remember that you must follow it to the letter. You may _not_ say or do anything outside of the script. You will be focusing on one particular individual, but you will also be interacting with another. The latter will see through all but the cleverest of facades. You need to be prepared."

He needs some more apple pie, actually. But still. A new project, _and_ the queen is obviously angry with him. His life ought to get interesting for a little while. He's looking forward to it.

And when he's done here, his new friend will be waiting in the third world. Awesome.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he assures her, with a wave of his hand. "I have another question. Shidoh said he saw you scribbling in a white notebook, but everyone knows you don't have a death note of your own. What's up with that?"

The queen scowls at him sourly.

"My note is nothing to do with you, Ryuk."

"Is it how you control hell? Is it? Is it?" he goads excitedly. "Can I see it?"

There are rumours. There are even other Shinigami that claim to have _seen_ the queen's note. They say she can detail the most intricate reality, or summon the most complex circumstances, for any human whose name and face she has seen.

If that is true, her note would be the most fantastic toy in the world. Oh, the fun he could have.

"You are guessing," she replies firmly. "And no, you may _not_ see it. There are certain things that should not ever fall into non-god hands, and you are a little too fond of humans for my liking."

_Wow. She is really good_.

"Okay, no problem," he replies casually.

He has plenty of time. He's just testing out the waters, after all.

"Good,"

Jas hands him the scroll that details exactly what he needs to do when dealing with his soon-to-be new human companion. A familiar face, a blast from his past. Silly girl doesn't even know she's in hell. Should be a bit of a laugh.

"Thanks. Guess I'll see you around, right?"

"Yes," she informs him. "Now, please go. I have better things to do."

"You mean you're going to go back to mooning over Keehl," Ryuk translates. "Geeze, if you love him so much, why don't you just release him from his false reality and keep him by your side. Surely you could make him fall for you, right?"

"You say the most disgusting things," she says distastefully. "As it stands, I have no power over the human heart. Which often makes it a useful tool for testing people."

"Ahh," Ryuk replies. "Got it."

"And yourself, Ryuk?" the queen asks, tone suddenly dangerously saccharine. "Gotten, say, unnecessarily fond of any humans lately? You're not still seeing your last assignment, are you?"

He gulps. She doesn't know, does she? Surely she's been too busy to pay any attention to what he does.

"Eh, she was a bit of fun," he replies lightly. "No big deal."

"Oh," Jas says, voice thick with disbelief. "Oh. Well, that is good news."

"Yeah," Ryuk says, shifting uncomfortably. "Anyway, gotta go. Things to do. Apples to eat."

"Of course," the queen responds, turning away from him. "Oh. And Ryuk?"

"Er, yes?"

He's already edging away from her, wings stretching up into the air.

"If I ever find out that you helped Wakefield get out of hell, I will have you disintegrated. Permanently."

"That's great to know," he squeaks, and bolts.

Jas hates him. Heh. His life is _hilarious_.

* * *

Christmas day arrives, and L celebrates by sleeping until midday, and deliberately ignoring little wine-and-cheese party the Penbers are holding in the kitchen.

"No festive food today, Watari," he requests politely. "I want something ordinary and boring, please."

Watari makes him blueberry pancakes, which are perfectly scrumptious and everything L needs right now.

Well, other than a functioning eye. And Mello.

Rae has been...quiet. Not just quiet, but _abnormally_ quiet. Not the sort of smug, malevolent silence it oozed when he first met it, or the cold, vindictive wordlessness of the days following Grace's death. Instead, it is _companionably_ quiet, staring over his shoulder at his computer screen and occasionally taking food from his plate, and discussing things with him like it actually values his opinion.

Presumably, the massive attitude adjustment is because it believes he will use the note. Which makes sense. Even if its personality is compatible to his own - which is unlikely, L likes to think - it would be impossible for them to get along when pitted against each other under such extreme circumstances.

So now, he predicts, Rae will simply become a bearable, ordinary Shinigami up until ten seconds before the end of the five-year period, at which point it will kill him in a blaze of fury for not using the note.

He does not understand. He does not understand at all. Why should the existance of redemption make him use the note. He cannot save Mello with it. He cannot restore Grace, or Matsuda. This is nonsensical. Why should it be certain he will use the note?

He will _not_ use it. He will _not_.

"More sugar, huh?" it queries, floating over to his chair. "Have you ever tried switching from tea to coffee? You might find the caffeine to be more helpful to your deductive powers."

He also isn't sure whether the damn thing is mocking him or not.

"An excess of caffeine causes a temporary state of increased alertness that then results in an opposing, somnolent effect a few hours later," he tells it quietly. "I am happy with my present maintenance regime, thank you."

"Whatever. I just think you could be even better if you tried new things," it tells him, ambling over to the window. L cannot help but notice just how much time it spends around windows, now. And despite Rae's claims, L is more certain than ever that the Shinigami is being lied to. Or manipulated in some way.

_Too many rules. Too many. And no good reasons for most of them_.

And who was that boy? L suspects Rae may have fallen for him at some point, possibly he was even Rae's first human love. Which means what? Is Rae like Rem, always falling for someone?

No, that isn't possible. Wasn't there a time when he declared Rae the least human creature he has ever met?

L throws his spoon against the table. It's Christmas day. He might not want to celebrate, but he's not going to angst into an empty plate, either. This is a time for families. He is going to go and find his.

Rae, unsurprisingly, trails after him.

* * *

He knows things have been bad for everyone else. Oh sure, they've been solving cases, but L is injured, and that man and that lady seem to be more and more disheartened with their boss, and Watari keeps fuckin' hinting that maybe _he_ should think about what's going to happen when he succeeds L.

When. Not even 'if'. When.

Mail tugs sharply at his curtains, until the infuriatingly bright sunlight has been banished from the room. He can't _think_ with that stuff glaring into his eyes. The night isn't much better at this time of year. Too many lights.

So very _festive_.

Mello used to love Christmas. He used to love every fucking celebration there was, just the same way he loved chocolate, and L, and designer clothes.

He'd never really subscribed to traditional gender roles. Or any gender roles at all. Mello had amazing hair and fabulous outfits, and he didn't give a shit if people thought he was a girl, as long as they thought he was attractive.

So proud, so superficial. So perfect. He used to buy Mail games for Christmas, even though he always claimed to despise the habit. If he was in a particularly good mood, he would even play a little himself. Two-person pac-man, with Mello lounging at his side, and the smell of pine trees permeating the room. Some of the happiest memories of Mail's life.

He takes another drag of his cigarette. He's filled his wardrobe with hundreds of cartons, and Watari restocks it on a weekly basis, so he never runs out. L's doing, again. L does everything he possibly can for Mail.

The problem is, L can't do _anything_ for him. And squatting on the ash-riddled floor of his bedroom looking at him mournfully is not going to make him suddenly go out and have lunch with the Penbers, or sing carols at the top of his voice, or agree to be L's heir, or - heaven forbid - forget Mello.

All it is doing is irritating him.

"Haven't you got a case to solve, or something?" he demands.

"I think I deserve a break," L says, in a tone that implies he's simply making conversation, and probably doesn't particularly agree with the things he is saying.

"Whatever. Can you go and break somewhere else, please?"

"Normal people spend Christmas with other people," L reminds him.

"We spent last Christmas together. It didn't help anything," Mail complains.

L tilts his head, birdlike and delicate.

"Other people eat a lot of fo-"

"No."

"Ah," L says, visibly disappointed. "Hm. We could go and see the city lights, tonight."

"What the _fuck_?" Mail sputters. "I don't care about how normal people spend Christmas. All I want to know is how other people _grieve_."

"Oh. At Christmas? Very, very quietly. And also, quite bitterly."

"Excellent," Mail retorts, flopping down onto the edge of his stinking mattress. "I've got that down pat, then."

"Sometimes they also...clean things?" L ventures.

"No."

"I am simply trying to help, Mail," L reasons.

"Yes. Do you think you could go and help someone else, now?"

He feels especially bad, today. It must be showing on his face, too. L has never been this tenacious before. The man is fucking _climbing onto his bed_.

"Get away from me," Mail warns, huddling against the wall. "Or I'll fuckin' kick you."

"I realised something today," L says, staring at the wall. Mail is somewhat comforted by the lack of direct eye-contact. Probably intentional.

"Don't you do that most days?" Mail asks sarcastically.

"Yes," L says gently, picking at the lint on Mail's quilt. "But today I realised that you are the closest thing I have to family here. Of all the people in this world, you are the one I love the most."

"Don't tell me that," Mail snarls. "I don't want to know."

He's not self-absorbed enough that he's missed the fact that L is broken. It's only a matter of time, now that he's lost his eye. That lady said so herself. He always used to be so proud and confident, and now he's struggling and talking to himself and walking around with a hangdog expression on his face like he isn't really sure what's going on any more.

Mail thinks maybe it all started with that little girl. Or...no, when they lost Matsuda. Or maybe it was earlier than that, when he realised they'd lost Mello.

That is the one reason Mail tolerates his former mentor. L loved Mello. He only spends time with Mail because he has been robbed of his favourite.

And that is exactly as it ought to be.

"But it's the truth," L mumbles, tucking his chin onto his knees. His eyes stray to some random point in the middle distance. There isn't anything there, but he stares intently anyway.

Maybe he's going mad, too. Mail's not sure he really wants the company.

"Have you been drinking?" he demands. He's heard that alchohol can make people say a lot of stupid shit, and it _is_ something that people do around Christmas, so maybe L...

_Hold on._

_Isn't alchohol something people use when they're grieving, too?_

"No."

Mail raises his head.

"Those people...do they have any wine left?" he queries.

"You can call them N and R, you know," L reprimands. "And yes, I believe they have one or two bottles left over. Why?"

* * *

"This is possibly the worst idea you have ever had," L says courteously. His protege is lying slumped against the wall, one hand wrapped around a half-full bottle of wine.

"Meh."

The faint pink colour staining his cheeks serves only to make him look even more sickly, like a starving man running a fever. L wonders whether the alchohol will have a drastic effect on his system. The Penbers' can manage two entire bottles between the two of them without moving past 'vaguely tipsy', so perhaps he'll be fine.

"Do you...feel better, M?"

"Absolutely not," Mail replies with certainty. "This is shit. Everything is shit. I want Mel back."

"He's...he's in hell," L points out carefully. "He cannot come back."

"I fuckin' _know_!"

L is not entirely sure what he's meant to be doing here. Mail rocks forward onto the balls of his feet - a parody of L's own crouch - and starts tracing the pattern on the wall.

"You love me, and I love him, and he's gone, and _nobody_ gets what they want. Hah."

L rubs at the back of his neck.

"I, ah, do not have romantic feelings for you," he hazards, distinctly uncomfortable.

"Thank fuck for that," Mail declares. He tugs at the topmost buttons of his trench coat, and then reefs his undershirt up to his neck. L stares at his chest, which seems to be made entirely of ribs.

"There's no space," the younger man continues sadly. "No space left over for anyone else. I don't care about you at all. I don't. I _can't_."

"That is acceptable," L murmurs. "That is exactly as it should be."

The tattoo is huge, each letter a few inches high, eating up the entire top half of Mail's torso. Mail traces it tenderly, so differently to the way he treats the rest of his body. He's still battered and scarred from the many times he's let criminals kick the shit out of him during cases.

Sometimes, L thinks that maybe Mail is beyond grieving, now. Sometimes L thinks he might just be dying, very, very slowly.

Mail takes another sip and sighs.

"It burns. I like it."

"Maybe you should slow down," L suggests. "Have you ever had wine before?"

"Nope. Mel used to drink vodka. I used to swear I'd never touch the stuff. Nicotine is my vice, not alcohol. Ha. Doesn't really matter what I said to him now, does it?"

"It matters," L says quietly. "Everything matters."

If he ever gets Mello back, L is going to ask him - no, _beg _him - to spend all his time with Mail.

Mello would probably listen to him, too. He always used to worship L. Used to want to be just like him.

L touches his eyepatch. Some hero he turned out to be. Broken and alone, sleepless and frightened, unable to save anybody, succeeded in his own job by a demon.

He should have spent more time with his kids when he had the chance. Maybe they would all still be alive. And together.

"He was my favourite," L confesses suddenly. "He was my chosen successor, not Near. I wanted him."

Mail sits up abruptly and glares at him.

"Don't you _dare_," he rasps. "Don't you dare tell me that now! Why didn't you tell him?"

"Because...I..."

Because he had always been too busy. Because it had never occurred to him that he could possibly be killed. Because by the time he realised, Light had destroyed him in every possible way, so that all L could think of was submitting and waiting and _losing_.

"_Damn_ you!" Mail yells. "Why didn't you tell him? How _dare_ you admit to it now, when he can't...fucking...when..."

"I know," L says, edging closer to him. "I know. Believe me. I know."

Mail turns away shakily.

"You don't know anything," he snarls. "You don't know how much he suffered. You don't know how hard he worked. You don't know _anything_ because _you weren't there_!"

Ah yes, very true. L is a rotten mentor, and always has been. He is somewhat glad that Rae is still in his bedroom, solving cases for him. He doesn't need someone adding insult to injury. It's hard enough dealing with the aftermath of Mello. It's hard enough just _thinking_ about Mello.

And how is he ever going to save him, with one eye and death on the horizon in just over a year?

Mail doesn't speak for a while. He eventually slides down the wall and lays on the floor, bringing the bottle to his lips every so often. It's hard to tell whether he is intoxicated, or simply in the throes of despair.

Eventually, he kicks out, the toe of his boot connecting smartly with L's ankle.

"Hey."

"What is it?" L queries.

"Can I tell you a secret?"

L lifts one eyebrow.

"Are you drunk, Mail?"

"I dunno. Do you want to hear it, or not?"

"Yes," L decides. "Tell me your secret."

"I let them catch me."

L blinks, turns that statement over in his head a few times, and then gives up.

"Who caught you? When?"

Mail just grins, a miserable little curl of the lip, nothing more. He must be somewhat relaxed, because he never, ever smiles. No matter what.

"I took my foot off the pedal. I could have gone faster, I could have outrun them all. That was the plan. Lidner didn't send the guards after me until I had enough time to get away, driving at maximum speed. But...I didn't."

L stares at him blankly, and then presses his hand to his good eye.

"Mail," he says weakly. "Please don't tell me that you deliberately got yourself shot."

"Yup," the younger man says savagely. "Mel had made all these plans to keep me safe, to _protect _me. But I knew he was going to get himself killed, so..."

"So you made plans to die that day, as well," L breathes. "Dear god. Mail. Have you never placed any value on your own life?"

"Have _you_?" Mail asks bitingly. "I didn't want to live. I just wanted to go with him. I thought...heh. I thought that if we died together, nothing could ever keep us apart. Ever. Thought it would be the two of us for all eternity."

He doesn't...he doesn't want to know. None of this. This is not his business. He should not have to hear it.

"Stop talking," L begs. "Stop telling me these things. Do you not understand that I care for you?"

"And instead," Mail continues cruelly, "I will never see him again. All of that for nothing."

"Stop it!"

"I can't stop it," Mail tells him sombrely. "I'm drunk."

L has no idea what to do. His pseudo-son is a goddamn mess, and he has no idea how to fix this, how to fix any of this. In a brief fit of inspiration, he snatches the wine bottle from Mail's gloved fingers.

"You are not allowed to have any more of this," he says crossly.

"Yes I am," Mail informs the floor. "This is what other people do. Drink until they pass out. And I'm not even unintelligible yet. Give it back."

"No. I am sixty-two percent certain that this endeavour will have an undesirable outcome."

"Give it back."

"It won't help him, you know."

"Give it _back_!"

"And you, of all people, definitely should not be drinking alone."

"Hm," Mail says thoughtfully. "It's kind of sweet, you know. The wine. It's not sour, like spirits."

"Oh," L says.

He can feel another tremendously bad idea coming on.

* * *

By the time the bottle is empty, L's world is pleasantly warm and blurry, and slightly tilted to one side. He spends about half an hour explaining to Mail how to calculate the percentage possibility for any given sponge cake containing cream.

Then he realises that his protege-turned-son-type-thing is actually unconscious, and also it is very dark, and he would like to be in bed. He grips the wonderful bottle securely in his left hand, holding it with his whole fist to make sure it stays safe.

Wine. Wine is amazing. He feels so much better. He feels like throwing up and singing an opera at the same time. He feels like his problems are very far away, and possibly belong to someone else.

He can't understand why Mail is so _sad_. Like, crying sad. Clearly they are both awesome detectives and going to save Mello and the world and everything and why the hell is this hallway so long, anyway? He keeps walking diagonally and ending up smushed against the wall.

Two eyes. Two eyes would be lovely right now. But then he wouldn't be a pirate. He likes to be a pirate. He needs a parrot, maybe. He's never had a pet before. He thinks he'd quite like a cat. Cats are smart, but not very swashbuckling.

He locates his room, and opens the door by falling on it, which seems to be the logical thing to do. Then he decides that he only has a nine...no, eighty-four...no, _nine_ percent chance of making it to his bed whilst remaining upright, so he drops to his hands and knees and attempts to navigate his floor.

He manages to avoid three piles of blue-jeans-and-white-shirts, and manages not to knock over a whole bunch of expensive equipment. His head is spinning quite delightfully, and he is possibly having more fun than he has ever had in his life before.

He likes wine. He thinks next time, he might try it mixed with hot chocolate. Or maple syrup. Or sugar cubes.

He finds his bed, and collapses next to it, punching the air in victory, because he is just such an awesome fucking detective-pirate.

Oh, wait. It's not his bed. It's his desk chair. The two look kind of similar, from way down here.

Green. Grace hated green. He kind of wants to cry, suddenly. She's so dead and far away, and he'd really like a hug from Matsuda, right about now. Also, there is a giant skeleton staring at him.

"Whaddayu want?" L says eloquently.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Rae demands. Its voice is _so_ annoying. It sounds like his mother, only she's a crazy evil psychopath. Hee.

L shrugs in reponse, which is kinda hard since he's presently lying on his back.

The Shinigami abandons his laptop and squats down beside him.

"Seriously. Have you been drugged again? L? Do you need help?"

L giggles. Drugs. Maybe he and Mail can try those next. Maybe he can get Mail to hallucinate himself a Mello and be happy again.

God, he is so _brilliant_.

"Nope. Wine."

"What? Someone spiked your drink? L. Snap out of it!"

"_I_ spiked my drink," L informs it cheerfully. "Heh. Spiked is an amusing word."

"You...you got yourself drunk?" Rae demands, eyes glittering. L likes its ghastly, nightmare-inducing eyes. He wishes he could change the colours of random parts of his body at will. Then he'd be even better at disguising himself.

"Yup. Have you ever noticed how swirly the ceiling has become?"

Rae snorts dismissively.

"I see. And did you think that making yourself inebriated would somehow help the Williams' case?"

"_You're_ solving the Williams' case," L points out, waving one hand in a circle for no particular reason. "S'not like you need _me_ any more."

The death god subjects him to a long, calculating stare, during which L gets distracted and starts trying to unwind the weave in the carpet.

"Interesting. That's not the sort of thing you would usually admit to out loud," it says thoughtfully. "It's true, of course. I wonder how many of your other inhibitions have been altered, Lawliet."

_Uh oh_, L thinks, vaguely.

"I dunno," he says aloud.

"Huh," Rae replies, stretching out beside him. "Would you use the note?"

"I don't think so," L replies airily. His head feels stupid and heavy. The note is _bad_. He is certain of that, even if he cannot exactly recall _why_.

And anyway, obviously Rae doesn't actually intend to coerce him into killing someone, because it isn't stupid enough to ask directly for something like that. If it really wanted him to, it would be trying to trick him.

Coerce is a funny word, too.

"I think you should at least hold it for a little while," Rae counters. "I think you should have it in your hands and decide whether you really want to use it."

"You are already convinced that I am going to use it," L reminds it. "What's the point?"

"While that is true," the Shinigami agrees, "and I am certain you will use the note at least once before it is removed from your possession, it would be far better for me if you simply used it today. I have more important things to be doing."

It reaches for the notebook strapped to L's chest.

"You mean, things like becoming king and killing all the evil people," L surmises. "Let me tell you, that is a slippery slo- _argh_! Don't!"

Rae's fingers graze his skin and L attempts to climb the wall. Since his geographic skills have been someone addled by alcohol, he succeeds only in attempting to climb the floor, which is easier but less useful.

"What the hell?" Rae demands, glaring down at him. Then it pokes him again, lightly.

"_Stop_ that!" L commands, flailing at its bony hand.

Rae rolls its terrible red eyes.

"Oh, what a big, tough detective you turned out to be, Lawliet."

It places the notebook beside him on the floor, open at the first page. There's a drawing on there, but L can't really make it out or remember what it was. He thinks maybe it might be a pickle. Or a narwhal. Everything is slightly fuzzy. His brain feels like it has been replaced with a lump of fudge.

He spends a good few minutes trying to tuck his shirt into his jeans, while Rae does something complicated with his computer, which mostly seems to involve bringing it down to L's level on the carpet.

L wishes he could stand up. That would be highly useful right now.

"Okay," Rae says, suddenly businesslike. "I have the perfect candidate for you, Lawliet."

Candidate sounds like 'candy'. L is sort of nauseous. He wishes the world would stay still long enough for him to catch up.

"Huh?"

"You're going to kill someone," Rae informs him. "Tonight. Look. This is Owen Dunborough. Eighty-seven. Part-time retiree, full-time gang leader. Despite his age, he still commands enough fear that his underlings follow his every instruction. In the past month, one hundred and ten people have been tortured and killed on his orders, including twelve children who were murdered in front of their parents. Additionally, he is suffering from a rare form of chronic heart failure, and is presently suffering from the end stages of bowel cancer."

"You say a lot of words," L comments diplomatically. He thinks there might be bugs living in the carpet. He likes bugs. Or maybe he hates them. He's not sure. Not one hundred percent sure, anyway.

"It should be him, L. He's evil, no one will be suspicious of his death, and you'd be doing him – and the rest of the world – a big favour. It would be an injustice to let him live."

L thinks if he looks _really, really_ closely, he might be able to see the bugs. He's completely indifferent to bugs. One thousand percent indifferent. Lots of indifferent.

Also, his head hurts. And Rae is wording things…trickily. It is trying to trick him into something. He needs to come up with a clever response.

"No," he replies cleverly. "I will not kill him."

Ha. How can it possibly argue against such logic?

Rae seems strangely unperturbed.

"Oh well," it replies airily. "I've got all night to convince you, don't I?"

It touches his ribs again, and L attempts to drag himself out of reach, and succeeds only in finding the wall he was looking for earlier.

"You can't torture me," he says quickly. "You're not allowed to."

"I'm not allowed to _hurt_ you," Rae corrects. "This doesn't hurt, it's just unbearable. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't think of this earlier."

L whimpers a little and tries to become one with the floor. He feels vulnerable and dizzy. He has trained himself to be resistant to all forms of torture, of course, but the inebriation is making him oversensitive and weak.

If he just writes a name, this will all be over. He will be rid of Rae. And he can clearly remember questioning whether categorically refusing the Shinigami's advice is always the right thing to do.

Maybe it has a point. Maybe he should just _let_ it be king. If it takes the note from him immediately afterwards, then he can only kill one person, so he can hardly become Kira, right?

Rae puts the pen in his hand, and L is pleased that he still remembers how he is supposed to hold it.

"Owen Dunborough," it tells him again. "His photograph is on the screen. I'll spell it for you."

Ooh, a spelling game. L loves games. Or…wait. Maybe it was Near who loved games. L loves sugar. That's right. Sugar and bugs. But not in the same spoonful.

His stomach hurts. Maybe he won't have any more wine for a little while. At least five minutes.

Rae touches his shirt, and L reacts, pre-emptively curling into a ball and yelping.

Apparently, he also makes stupid noises when drunk.

"I'd hurry up, if I were you," the death god tells him, with an evil little smile.

"Oh," L says. He then waves the pen in the air a few times, because he has no idea where his notebook has actually gone, and he isn't entirely sure how to go about solving this problem.

Rae sighs at him, and moves the note until it is directly in front of him.

"Oh, thank you."

"You have five seconds to start writing, L."

L thinks five seconds is enough time to check for bugs first. He pushes his face into the carpet.

_Hey, it's nice and dark down here_.

The bugs have clearly all gone to bed for the night, because he still can't see any. Also, being awake requires far too many complicated decisions. He is comfortable. He shall sleep here.

Three seconds later, he is woken up again.

"Hey! No sleeping. Not yet!" Rae yells, grabbing him by the front of his shirt.

"Uhhghh."

"_Write_, damn you! O. W."

"Oh, right," L replies blearily, and tries to force his hand to grip properly and move in the correct way to make letters. "O. W."

"That's the carpet! Write on the paper!"

"Picky, picky," L grumbles. He wants to close his eyes again. He likes not being able to see anything. Blackness is fun. His hair is black. Mello's boots are black. No wonder Matt is sad all the time, without Mello's boots of fun around.

"What's taking so long, L?" Rae asks, voice sickly-sweet and dangerous.

"I have forgotten how to make a 'W'," L replies forlornly. "It starts off like an 'L', doesn't i- argh! No! _No! Stop!_"

"Not until you sober up," Rae snarls, tickling relentlessly. L flails clumsily at its hand, vaguely embarrassed by the noises he is making.

"I c-can't write like thisss," he gasps.

"But you're pretty amusing all the same. Wriggle, L. Wriggle."

L clutches tightly at his sides and tries to remember how to breathe. He's too tired, and too spinny for this rubbish, and his skin is possibly going to explode soon, and he can hardly think.

No one touches him. No one ever, ever touches him. God_damnit_. This isn't fair. He can't handle this.

"Go _away_," he breathes, utterly exhausted, clamping down on Rae's bony hand with both of his own. "Can't even see the page. Can't kill anyone today."

"Huh," Rae concedes. "But I suspect you will still be ticklish tomorrow, Lawliet."

L sucks in a deep breath, revering the absence of any sensation, trying to force his mind to work properly.

_It doesn't care that much what I do tonight_, he thinks. _It still thinks it will win_.

Probably it will win. Since it is invisible and can move at the speed of light, and has _really_ cold hands. And he only has three eyes. Hold on, one eye. That's right. One. How can he possibly compete?

It releases his shirt, and he crumples up on his side, curling into a tight little ball. His head is presently resting on something hard and uncomfortable, which turns out to be Rae's foot.

"You're a fucking mess," the Shinigami tells him primly. "Seriously. I'm not even sure why the king considered you to be a _challenge_."

L hums to himself, painfully aware that Rae is in a position to start tormenting him again at any time. But the wine is starting to eat away at his consciousness, and his limbs are heavy, and he's willing to take whatever rest he can get.

He glances up at Rae, who is still, for once, and grins.

"Heh. You're doing it again. I wish I could do that."

"Do _what_?" the death god grumbles.

"That thing," L says expansively. "That thing where you make your eyes change colour."

Rae stiffens, and looks at him as if he's just threatened to use the note on an entire orphanage.

"What did you say?" it rasps.

"Huh? Oh, your eyes have gone brown. Again. I like them better this way. You should keep them."

"No," Rae says quietly. "No, that can't be. Your name is still…your name. Fuck. Your fucking _name _is…holy hell!"

L never finds out what his name is, because Rae promptly vanishes from his side. A few minutes pass, and L goes back to looking for bugs, because there doesn't seem to be anything else to do.

He sort of wants some tea.

"_What the hell_?" Rae roars from elsewhere, and then comes storming back into his bedroom. "My eyes are brown!"

"I said that," L informs it helpfully.

"You said it had happened _before_," Rae continues, panicked.

Heh. Serves it right for tormenting him.

"Yeah, we were talking about my mother," L confirms.

"Oh shit. Was your name blurry then?" Rae demands. If it had any skin, L is pretty certain it would be sweating profusely right now.

"I dunno. I can't see my own name. Why is this a big deal, anyway?"

"Because the eyes of a death god are fucking important, that's why!" Rae wails. "Especially _mine_!"

"Oh? Why? Because you're the heir to the throne?"

He wonders what a Shinigami throne looks like. It is hard to imagine that it could possibly be more comfortable than his favourite chair.

"No!" Rae gesticulates. "Not because of that, because of…because…it's like a catch. A challenge. It has something to do with the boy from my nightmares, I think. Anyway, forget that now. We need to _fix _this!"

"Why? What happens when your eyes go brown and stop working?"

"Everything ends," Rae whispers. "I would be…dear god, that's _it_. _You've_ done this, haven't you? You. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. _FUCK_ YOU, LAWLIET!"

"Argh, no shouting," L complains, pressing his hands to his ears.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" Rae rages. "DAMN YOU, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? ALL I ASKED WAS FOR YOU TO WRITE IN THE NOTEBOOK. THERE WAS NO REASON FOR _THIS_!"

L blinks at it. He would love to know what is actually going on, but he is excessively tired and his Shinigami appears to have gone mad.

And then he actually sees it happen, like the flick of a switch, brown-to-red.

"It's okay," he mumbles, stifling a yawn. "You're back."

"YOU FUCKING….wait, what? Oh. Your name is normal again," Rae manages weakly. It is shaking. Actually _shaking_. It looks like someone has just dropped a bomb on its head. It looks wrecked.

"Your eyes aren't supposed to change colour, huh?" he asks. "You won't die, will you? I'd have to do something about it, otherwise. I can't just let people die in my care."

Rae stares at him again, and L realises drowsily that it hasn't come all the way back. Its eyes are the colour of rust. Maybe he shouldn't tell it. It might shout again. Or die.

"Go to sleep," it tells him roughly.

He thinks maybe he should sit up with it. It seems distressed. Something has gone wrong. There are so many things he doesn't understand about the Shinigami.

He hopes, if nothing else, that he is able to remember this in the morning. His mind feels treacherous and unstable. He should climb into bed. He should drink a litre of water. He should talk to Rae. There are a lot of things he ought to do, right now.

Instead of doing any of them, he closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you so much for reading.

+ again, not sure when next chapter will be up. next chapter should be the beginning of the last huge arc for this story, so it might take my tiny brain a while to plot it all out. heh.


	24. Concern

notes/warnings

+ swearing

+ loads of internal monologuing

+ this was intended to be part of a larger chapter, but the whole thing just got too big. I fail at fic management.

* * *

**Concern**

When L wakes, he is immediately aware of two things. One, his stomach hurts. And two, his head hurts.

_Dear god, what happened last night?_

He remembers the Williams' case, and then Mail with a bottle of wine, and then. Oh no. And then _he_ had the bottle of wine. And then Rae got really angry about something, and there are big blank gaps in L's memory about everything in between. He's not even certain as to how he actually got into his bed.

How could he have been so repulsively stupid? What has he given away? To Rae. To _anyone_. Have his powers of deduction been permanently reduced? He's never even _ingested_ alcohol before.

Has he given Mail some sort of horrible new habit with which to destroy himself?

Someone thumps on his door. The sound jars horribly, sparking a white-hot jolt behind his eyes.

"What?" he asks bleakly. He feels both disgusting and exhausted.

The door opens to reveal one irritable Naomi Penber. Of course. No-one else would dare to wake him at this hour of the...afternoon.

"I have absolutely no idea what has gotten into you," she tells him sharply. "And right now, I don't really care. Your figurative son has been violently ill for the past three hours, and keeps asking me to kill him. The two of you got drunk last night, I presume."

"Yes, that is correct," L agrees, ashamedly.

"Then you need to get up, go downstairs, and deal with Mail like the responsible adult you pretend to be," she orders, crossly.

He is technically her boss, and technically this is none of her business, and technically his head may actually fall off if he ceases to be horizontal.

But he also knows that she has more common sense than any other member of his team, and if she says he needs to go to Mail, then he needs to go to Mail.

"Leave it with me," he says, in the most authoritative tone he can muster. After she leaves, he allows himself three more minutes of blissful solitude before gritting his teeth and dragging himself from his bed.

He was emotionally vulnerable, yesterday. He admitted to caring for - no, _loving_ - Mail, and he drank himself into a stupor out of some misguided notion of _support_, and he is pretty sure he managed to severely upset Rae, and there are a whole lot of things he would rather not face right now. But he is L, and he has a responsibility to this world as long as he lives in it. He's had his celebration. He has had his night of excess. No more of that, now.

He staggers downstairs and orders a breakfast of painkillers and weak tea before heading to Mail's bathroom. The younger man is hunched over his toilet, possibly looking more miserable than he ever has before.

"I want to stop feeling," he whispers, as soon as L enters the room. "L. I've had enough. This is enough."

"It's just dehydration," L explains. "If you continue to be unable to keep water down, I will have Watari give you intravenous fluids. You should return to your normal level of health by this evening, at the latest."

"My head is thumping," Mail tells him. "Dear _fuck_. I want it to stop. I want him back. I want to go _home_!"

In all of L's life, he has never truly had a home. He suspects Mail probably feels the same.

No. Mail doesn't feel the same. He built his home around another person. That is the principle difference between the two of them.

"It's all right," L murmurs.

Honestly, he has no idea what to do. Or what to say. He's never been one for providing comfort. He's never been the nurturing kind. He doesn't have any friends for a _reason_.

"I'm so tired," Mail tells him dejectedly. "So long. So hard. I don't even know what the fuck I'm bringing up, because I haven't eaten anything in like a year, and this stuff sure doesn't taste like wine."

L frowns, and reaches a decision. He shuffles across the cool, tiled floor and crouches down right behind Mail, wrapping his arms around the younger man.

"_Don't do that_," Mail growls, struggling. "Don't touch me. Fuck."

Memories from last night come flooding back in vivid detail, when L himself used similar phrases numerous times. His skin crawls under his clothes, but he's safe here, and Rae isn't here, and he's supposed to be focusing on his protégé.

"I have earned this much," he replies confidently. "I look after you."

Mail claws at his hands.

"You don't understand," he says wretchedly. "I don't want anyone else...to..."

"I know," L replies, trying not to focus on just how fragile and sharp Mail feels beneath his arms. "I know. It's just today. Just until you are well again."

Mail turns to look at him. His face is paper-white. His dark blue eyes look empty and tired. The sheer _pain_ in his expression provokes a visceral response from L, who pulls him closer. The younger man sighs, defeated, and ceases his struggling. L doesn't loosen his grip. He probably needs the contact. It has been so long.

"Okay," Mail replies unhappily. "Just for now."

* * *

L still has some gaps in his memory of last night, but he is comforted by Rae's baleful silence. If he had given away anything _important_, Rae would be treating him with smugness and delight.

Therefore, the results of last night - as far as he can deduce - are that his Shinigami now knows he is both ticklish and socially inept.

Nothing too damaging, really. Rae probably knew at least one of those things already.

"I've been thinking about it," he says softly, sipping his tea. "I've been thinking about it since my headache stopped, but I still haven't come to any conclusions."

Brown.

"I don't need your fucking _help_, Lawliet!"

Red. L blinks. So fast. Why does it happen in a matter of seconds sometimes, and at other times, last for minutes on end? What is the trigger?

Rae reads his expression far too well.

"Did it just happen again?" it demands.

"Briefly," L concedes. "I think you should take me to the Shinigami king. Since I am not interested in impressing or pleasing him, I might be able to find out more information than he is willing to give you."

"The king would eat you for breakfast," Rae replies darkly. "Or possibly for dessert."

"Dessert would make more sense," L agrees. "I probably taste relatively sweet."

Rae is staring at him intently again, as if it seeks to read something right off his skin. L shifts in his seat, still feeling a little uncomfortable.

Nobody _touches_ him, damnit.

"Is there a possibility that you have taken ill?" he enquires, trying to direct the conversation back to _Rae's_ apparent weakness and gain the upper hand once more.

"Gods do not become ill," Rae tells him derisively.

"But is there an analogue of being ill?" L probes. "Can Shinigami become possessed? Poisoned? Can they go mad? Can they be rerouted, somehow? It isn't as if your kind is absolutely immortal, after all?"

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"The death notes," L replies simply. "You need them to live, yes?"

Rae smirks.

"That is true, right now. But when I succeed the throne, I will be sustained by my subjects. Every time a Shinigami kills a human to extend its own life, a small amount of that life force is automatically redistributed directly to the king."

"Taxes?" L asks, somewhat amused. "How very feudal."

"We are a monarchy, L."

"Yes. Perhaps you ought to think about upgrading to a democracy, or some sort of republic. After all, the Shinigami realm is rotting, isn't it? Something must be changed."

"It will not rot once I am king," Rae replies with conviction. "When that day comes, everything will change for the better."

"I believe, from what I know of your ideals, that the human world will suffer," L muses. "But perhaps at that cost, you will be able to save your own world. I neither approve nor disapprove."

"I disapprove of _you_."

"So immature."

L reaches for a cupcake, and then remembers that he is not yet recovered enough to stomach sugar. He places it back on the tray forlornly.

"So you are not ill," he continues. "Huh. But I think we can safely assume two things right now, with ninety-two and ninety-one percent certainty, respectively."

"Yes?"

"One," L says, counting delicately on his fingers, "we can assume that what happened with Grace's name was not something brought about by the gorgon."

"I suppose," Rae replies grudgingly.

"And two, we can assume that this is _not_ my fault, despite what you said last night."

"I'm surprised you remember _anything_ about last night."

"Believe me," L says sombrely. "I will be staying away from your hands for quite some time."

Rae snickers a little, slowly returning to its old self.

"And why is this definitely not your fault?"

"Because you have told me you can only be adversely affected by humans you care about," L informs it. "This was further confirmed when your eyes were weakened around Grace, whom you clearly had feelings for. Now, there is no possibility of you having feelings for me-"

"Absolutely not."

"Quite. Therefore, either there is an internal cause, or...you have fallen for another human, who is presently affecting you."

"I don't fall for _humans_. I don't fall for _anyone_."

"What about Grace?"

"She was a frightened little girl. I wasn't in _love_ with her! I was trying to protect her!"

"But you claim to be trying to protect all the good people in the world, yet you did not become impaired until you met Grace. Therefore, she must have been at least somewhat special."

"You're theorising again," Rae snaps vehemently. "I don't love anybody. I care for everybody, end of story."

"Somewhat special," L reiterates. And therein lies his possible salvation. If there is someone new who is important to Rae, then. Well, Rae might fall for that person completely.

And be obliterated.

But if, _if_ Rae is a human stuck in hell, then L cannot stand for it to be harmed because of him. And if it is being tested, then...

Then _what_ is he supposed to do? The test must be to make him use the note. If he doesn't kill anyone else, he chooses to doom this person to hell for all eternity?

No, he cannot be responsible for that.

So…what to do, then?

There's only a six percent chance Rae is human. He needs more evidence. He still has a year to decide what he ought to do.

"I'm not like you," Rae informs him. "I don't have _favourites_."

"Hm?"

"Do you want to sleep with him?"

L gapes.

"What…what are you saying?"

Rae grins and moves closer. Reflexively, L leans away from it.

"Your _favourite_. You're attracted to him, aren't you? You're just trying to wear down his defences until he'll let you in."

"You are sick," L tells it, horrified. "I would _never_-"

"Just like you would never kill someone," Rae continues. "Except, wait, you attempted to kill me. In cold blood. And now you're fucking with my eyes."

"I will _not_ violate Mail, and I am not attempting to sabotage you," L whispers, absolutely furious. "You have spent so long gazing out the window, Shinigami. Why don't you look around you and gain some _perspective_!"

It is not human. It cannot be human. He does not need to worry, because it is nothing more than an evil Shinigami. It is not his problem. It will not fall, because it doesn't have a damn heart to begin with. He clambers out of his chair. He has better things to do than sit here and be insulted.

He'll find a case. He'll find _something_. And then he'll solve it on his own, too.

"Off you go, then," Rae tells him nastily. "Flounce out of the room. Just remember, Miss Marple. Remember _this_."

It is suddenly right behind him, a bony hand resting either side of his ribcage. L freezes and sucks in a breath. He can deal with this. He is sober, now. He has trained himself to deal with this.

"That is all," Rae says, releasing him. "Just don't forget, Lawliet. If you start tampering with my eyes again, I will make your life very, _very_ difficult."

* * *

As the new year begins, they hit another slump. Presumably the criminals of the world have worn themselves out in the festive rush. Things are a little tense at L's base. Absolutely no-one is on speaking terms with him. Mail seems to be unnerved by his recent display of affection, Rae skulks around and mutters underneath its breath, and Naomi isn't bothering to conceal her disgust at his actions on Christmas day.

Both she and her husband are also becoming increasingly convinced that he is unfit for his job. He knows. They are not as subtle as they might think.

_He_ isn't sure that he's fit for his job, actually.

Which is probably why he takes the very first case that comes along, and refuses to let anyone else help him. It's nothing, really. Two gory murders, both rich and successful young men. Any sufficiently-competent detective inspector could probably solve it with ease.

But he needs to prove a point. He needs to sink or swim on his own. Because whether he stays or leaves, what he needs right now is certainty.

* * *

Naomi spends four hours sparring with Watari, and eventually staggers to bed, physically and mentally exhausted.

Raye is already snoring, out like a metaphorical light, and she is glad for the silence. He weighs her down, sometimes. He wears her out, just like the others. Sometimes she feels as if she adopted him, instead of marrying him.

He wanted so many things from her, once she was dead and with him again. He wanted children, and home-cooked meals, and crackling fireplaces, and subservience. And she loved him enough that she might have said yes. Yes to everything. Yes to being nothing more than Mrs Penber for the rest of her days.

Yes to safety.

But then L came along, and changed everything, in his usual shuffling, unobtrusive way. Even Raye didn't try to compete with how she felt about L. With how much she wanted to _work_ with him. When he had offered her a job – by way of a polite little letter that turned up inside her triple-deadlocked hatchback – even Raye hadn't dared to dissuade her.

Maybe he thought that if she was forced to choose one or the other, she would leave him and go with L. And honestly, maybe she would have. Raye is her stability, her husband, and her home. But L…L is her dream job. Her career. Everything she wants in her life. Fighting crime, saving innocent people, saving less-than-innocent people, saving _people_. Making the world a slightly better place with every second that she lives.

She was never particularly enamoured with the idea of procreation, when all she had to look forward to was a big dusty house and menial chores. But now she is living in a dangerous, knife-edge world, filled with geniuses and murderers and mayhem. Where her own identity is the most frightening thing in the world. Where intellect is the only thing that lets anyone sleep soundly in their bed at night. Where they might all be killed at a second's notice. And it is here, right here, that she wouldn't mind having a tagger-along.

Because this world, this world right here, this is the one she wants to teach about. As selfish as it is, she wants a child that is more her than Raye. She wants to raise someone to be intelligent, brilliant, logical, and strong. It is the best start to life she can possibly imagine giving.

In essence, she wants to take Raye's warm, domestic world, and wrap it tightly around L's beautifully nightmarish world, and make her home in both of them. Yes, that would be perfect.

Raye is a sensible future.

L is her idol.

_Was_ her idol.

He isn't any more, of course. She has no inclination to become a burned-out, overtired, emotionally-defunct, lonely hero-of-yesteryear. She has watched him become systematically decimated, by murder, by death, by guilt. By Light. By Matsuda. By everything in between. L's is not the sort of job that one grows old in. L's is the sort of job that one has for five, maybe ten years, and gives up. Moves on.

But no. He will stay until it ends him. She has seen a similar thing happen before. Tiny, fragile dogs, that are obsessed with chasing the wheels of fast-moving cars on the highway.

Inevitably, one day there will be a flat dog on the road. And the cars will fly past, and the drivers will not even notice. And nothing will have been achieved.

She cannot comprehend his most recent depression. In a way, she blames herself. She is certain that he can read her disapproval. He makes mistakes. He gets himself kidnapped. He teaches small children to swear. He gets Mail drunk. At times, it almost seems as if he simply does not _think _before he acts.

And that…that is such a far cry from the man she knew. The man she admired. The man she practically wanted to _be_.

_It is time to stop chasing the tyres, my friend_, she thinks wryly. She knows Watari wants to see him settled. She would like to see him settled, too. His identity is still protected enough. He could become an ordinary citizen without too much retribution. Better to quit with his reputation still intact, right?

And that is the other irritating thing. L is powering through cases, solving them at least seven percent more efficiently and four percent more accurately than he ever has before. Mail crunched the numbers yesterday.

And yet, he seems almost unhappy with his results. As if…as if he thinks he isn't trying hard enough. Or as if someone else is solving the cases instead of him. But they aren't. She doesn't understand.

There is a lot she doesn't understand. Maybe it's time to say something.

She is his deputy, after all.

Raye rolls over, muttering something about guns, and hugs her from behind. Naomi touches his hand.

It's not as if she doesn't love him.

It's just…this. All of this. This whole situation is unbalanced, somehow, and she has no idea what she needs to do to set it right.

But she's going to damn well _try_.

* * *

L works. He works, and works, and works. Rae ignores him, and finds its own cases to solve. He fills the silence with evidence, with data and details, and times and places and hints. He works like he used to, when he was young and actually _enthusiastic_ about what he did.

He works like it might actually bring Mello back.

The murderer is crafty in unorthodox ways. The motive is uncomplicated; a hatred of straight, white, successful men is not exactly an unusual thing. There are no concealed messages, no demands made, no strange symbols. There are no implausible break-ins, or inconceivable methods of death. Knife to the heart is about as basic as it gets.

There is simply… no trace. No witnesses, no fingerprints, nothing left behind. L is playing cat-and-mouse with a murderer who has nothing to prove, and nothing to set him apart from anyone else.

No psychological games. This is a maths equation. Evidence-gathering. Nothing more.

He can do this.

Rae dumps a stack of paper on his desk. L can tell from just one glance that there are at least three separate cases in there.

_Damnit_.

"Done," it hisses, managing to sound both disgusted and smug at the same time. "I'm leaving for an hour. Protect the note."

The threat is unspoken. L nods just once, and does not meet its eyes. There is a forty-two percent chance that it is going out to gather evidence, which means it is working on yet _another_ case, which means…

Four.

Hell.

L lets himself rest his forehead against the desk. The wood is polished and cool. His instincts tell him to check through Rae's reports in detail – especially since he will have to present the findings as his own – but he feels heavy and listless, and he is tired of sleuthing.

Him. Tired of sleuthing.

He might as well face it. There is no point him verifying Rae's work, because the Shinigami runs rings around him. Outclasses him, in every possible way. When it leaves him - if for some murky, inexplicable purpose it leaves him _alive – _the others will quickly realise that he has become an empty shell. Incapable.

He flips through the pages delicately. The Decreaux case. Eight members from the same, affluent, extended family were found dead and floating in a nearby river. Rae apparently followed their butler and witnessed him killing the most recent victim. Simple. It has handwritten a little note about where the man stashed his dirty, bloodstained clothes, so that L will have evidence.

So that Rae remains a secret. So that L can take the credit.

The Lennard case. Two sisters disappeared without a trace from the same crowded town square six years apart. The case is only really worthy of L's attention because of the media hype surrounding it.

Rae has extracted a chat-room log from the computer of the supposed parents, proving the whole scenario was an elaborate hoax. The sisters are alive, well, and living abroad.

Well, that will be easy. L can simply say he hacked into the computer himself, remotely. He droops in his chair. This is possibly the most demoralising experience of his life. He is relying on someone else to do his job. _All _of his job. He has narrowed his own murder case down to five individuals, all of which are presently floating around the ten-percent suspicion mark.

Hardly progress.

And the worst part is, he doesn't believe that Rae is intentionally doing this to hurt him. The Shinigami is simply expressing its interest in human cases, and justice. It is trying to _help_. And it is _displacing him_.

He glances at the third case. The recently-infamous Londonderry Strangler, responsible for raping and murdering at least twenty-eight people. Rae has linked every case back to a young doctor named Arthur Griddon. The unusual footprints found at the scene of every crime match Griddon's expensive imported boots. And he has no alibi.

Perfect. L wants to cry, he is so frustrated.

But no. He has more important things to do. An entire hour free from Rae cannot simply be squandered, not at this time.

He hops out of his chair and pads across the carpet and out of his room, seeking the company of his oldest and most loyal employee.

He is not yet enough of a fool to waste the opportunities he is given.

* * *

"Watari?"

The older man lifts his head, smiles mildly at his employer, and waits. Twenty-five years of working for L have taught him that it is pointless to attempt to anticipate requests.

Unless, of course, such requests are associated with sweets. He is well-prepared for those. But L would not bother to visit Watari in person for something so very basic. And an empty sugar bowl would not cause him to wear such a lost, destitute expression. Something else is wrong.

Watari is getting heartily sick of L looking so sad.

God knows he doesn't deserve it. Whatever he is going through right now, has been going through for years, he doesn't deserve it.

Watari doesn't know what it is, exactly. But he will not ask. L will tell him when he needs to know.

"What is it, L?"

There are enough people arguing with him as it is. Enough people debating his decisions, arguing his tactics, and questioning his resolve. Ever since he stopped working alone – the very first sign of defeat, of old age, of exhaustion – L has always reiterated the same thing. He needs people like Naomi and Mail. People who can think for themselves.

Now, Watari theorises that L is using them as a failsafe. As a crutch. He is frightened.

And Watari will expertly hold his tongue. He will hide his sympathy behind an obliging smile and a tray of cake. He will not say the things he wants to say, because L does not want a reward. He does not want a comfortable ending. He wants to go on forever.

Sometimes Watari honestly believes that L doesn't know how to be happy.

Touta Matsuda had been a good influence. Watari wishes he had stayed with the team for a little longer. He had made L smile, and he had made L safe, if only for a short time.

He ought not be thinking these things. He is getting old, too, but he works within his means. He does not brutalise his mind the way his young employer does. L will burn out before he does, and that is a damn shame, a crying shame. Someone ought to do something.

And Watari knows how well L can read his expression. He knows that L must have some idea of the nature of his recent thoughts. And L will read that, incorrectly, as a sign of disillusionment. Because L never misses an opportunity to judge himself harshly.

Perhaps, then, he ought to speak up. Break the quarter-century silence. Say something.

Say what?

_You need to sleep now._

_Let your successors take over._

_He is gone. You are safe._

_I want you to be happy. Have you ever been happy?_

_Thank you._

_This will not always be your responsibility, L. There are others, even if they are not as good as you._

_He is gone. He cannot come back._

_Let someone protect you for a change._

_Do you have any idea how much I admire you?_

_It will be too late to stop when everybody knows your face._

_Do you honestly not realise that they all love you? Even Mail, somewhere in his shrivelled little heart. Because that is the sort of person you are. Why are you so blind to the effect you have on those around you?_

_He cannot ever, ever, ever, ever, ever come back. I swear._

There are no words. What can be said to a hero of this magnitude?

There is no cajoling the selfless.

"L?"

"I want to retrain myself," L replies evenly, his face sickly in the bright fluorescent lighting.

Watari's perfectly-schooled countenance does not belie the heaviness in his heart. He is a professional, above all else.

"Again, L?"

That is all the protest he will venture. Repeating the question, just once.

_Are you certain?_

"Yes, again," L says firmly. "I am becoming weak."

There are few things he enjoys _less_ than torturing L. Watari allows himself just a split second to reflect upon this, but apparently it is still too much time for the young man's liking.

"Do you not wish to do this today?" he challenges, his one eye piercing and hollow. "Are you ill? It is quite important that we do this now, you see."

"I am quite healthy," Watari assures him. "I simply–"

"Then have you decided that you would rather work for someone else?" L asks, suddenly quiet. "You have never hesitated before."

He looks so young, standing in the middle of the expensive tiled floor in his worn-out white shirt, shoulders hunched and lips pursed. He looks as though he is preparing to be burned by Watari's answer.

"I will work for you until I am incapable of any useful voluntary motor control," Watari assures him. "Which equipment would you like me to use today?"

"Category two, I believe," L replies, thumbing his lower lip.

Oh. Desensitisation. Surely L knows that criminals rarely, if ever, resort to tickle-torture.

Still. He must have a good reason.

* * *

Rae comes back during the final phase of his resistance training and giggles at him briefly, then goes about its business. L, feeling only slightly renewed, researches his case through the night and well into the later hours of the morning. His only company is a giant raspberry torte, which is more than adequate.

It is luck, rather than strategy, that leads him to an unexpected clue around lunch-time. A single ginger hair found on the fourth victim, who was himself most distinctly white-blonde. The man had no known associates with that particular hair colour.

It cuts his suspect list down to one person. One. George Muttby, an outspoken human rights activist who was near the scene of crime for all eight deaths.

Eight. Six more people have died since he started the case. How many of them could a more competent man have saved?

Case closed.

Sometimes L despises himself.

* * *

The back of L's head itches. He has been wearing the patch for too long, but he does not wish to take it off.

Not in front of Rae.

He is not bothered by the scarred, uneven, slowly-sinking hole in his face. He has never cared for his own aesthetics. But he does not want to show the Shinigami that weakness.

Which is prideful and silly, because it already knows. It knows what he cannot do. It is there all the time, towering over him him, observing his actions, criticising his thinking, knowing.

He plans to reveal Rae's case findings one-by-one over the next few days, to keep things believable.

He is so unendingly pathetic.

How will he ever save Mello like this?

"So, what do you think?" Rae asks, managing to sound both conversational and derisive at once. "It's good, when you can walk into any building you choose and completely escape notice. When you can follow someone closely for days without having to show cause. When you can _fly_."

"Does this mean that you admit that you have not usurped me on brains alone?" L asks softly. "That is somewhat encouraging, I suppose."

"Is it? Does it really matter?" Rae jeers. "I am better than you in every possible way. That is all."

"Perhaps."

It is early morning. The sunlight is pale and weak, and barely reaches the corners of the room. He has cramps in his hands, and he isn't exactly sure why. His shirt is so dirty it is almost grey, and his body odour is becoming thoroughly unpleasant.

"Did you even bother to read through my cases?" Rae asks laconically, propping its elbow up on his desk.

"'Skimmed' would probably be a more accurate term."

He has never set much store by flying. Perhaps he sets his sights too low.

"Huh. You're such a freaking lose-"

"And I thoroughly appreciate your help," L adds miserably. "You are very clever, Shinigami. Your work will save a lot of lives."

And that is a good thing, because someone has to. Someone has to do this job, _his_ job, at which he is failing so completely.

Maybe that will be the ultimate outcome – the _intended_ outcome, even – of their time together. Perhaps this is not about the king, or even the Shinigami. Perhaps the world is simply lining up a new L.

And that isn't fair. He _chose_ his successor, damnit. He chose, and then Mello was snatched away from him by a force of nature that he cannot change and he cannot outsmart. And maybe Mello would still be alive and well, had L chosen someone else.

He isn't sure any more.

"You're welcome?" Rae offers, sounding a little bemused by L's sudden, bitter gratitude.

L glances up at the Shinigami. His demon, his curse, his rival. Towering bones, and fire, and blades, and chocolate eyes, and feathers, and…

_Oh no. Not again_.

"Anytime," he replies steadily. "That is what I am supposed to say according to common etiquette, I believe?"

Rae blinks at him.

"L? It's happening again, isn't it?"

It sounds a little tremulous. Whatever this thing is, L is reasonably convinced that Rae is genuinely frightened of it.

"Yes," he says briskly.

"You're _doing_ it again!"

_And here we go_, L thinks grimly. Well, no point in dragging this out all day. He gets resolutely to his feet.

"Go on then," he says sharply, holding out his arms. "Go on. Have your vengeance on me, if you truly believe it will fix anything. I know you are desperate to blame me for this. Go on!"

Rae grabs him by the collar of his shirt so that it bunches and pulls tight around his throat, choking him.

"Stop it," it demands shakily. "Stop this. _Stop_ it!"

"I can't."

"It is _your_ fault!"

"I stand by my own hypothesis," L rasps. "It is the fault of whomever you care for now."

"There _isn't_ anyone!"

"How do you know?" L mutters, feeling faint. "Would you know if that boy came back? The one from your nightmares? The one you once had feelings for?"

Rae drops him as if he has become burning hot. And it has suddenly developed a functional nervous system.

"Don't bring him up," it hisses. "And I _never_…I never…I. You are making ridiculous assumptions."

"As are you," L agrees. "In all of our time together, I have never shown you any malice at all. You have less reason to suspect me than I have to suspect you."

It is apprehensive, this time, rather than raging. Sometimes, its actions are so predictably, utterly _human_ that L cannot help but wonder.

"You are evil," Rae tells him darkly. "That is all the reason that I need."

"If you truly felt that way, you would be an abysmal detective," L replies, touching his throat gingerly. "Therefore, that statement must be a lie."

"Whatever. _Why_ isn't this dissipating?" Rae asks, frantically rubbing at its eye sockets, as if that will help.

Sympathetically, L touches his own dead eye. He knows how it feels. He keeps daydreaming that one day he will wake up and his depth perception will be back.

"I do not know. My knowledge of you, and the laws of the Shinigami world, is not sufficient to allow me to ascertain the exact cure," L replies. "Have you tried ignoring it?"

"You think that if I ignore it for long enough it will set in permanently," Rae wails. "You just want everyone to be debilitated like you!"

"I want you to be silent," L commands, raising his voice. "You are behaving like a child. We are two of the most brilliant sleuths in any realm. We will work this out."

Rae stares at him. The colour of its eyes deepens by at least three shades.

_Why? Why now? _

_You cannot possibly be human, can you?_

How can he know? How can he possibly know anything?

He must find out. Even if Rae suffers, even if Rae must be sacrificed. Even if it makes him a terrible person, he needs to learn how the afterlife works. How hell works. Because he must, he _must_, save Mello.

At any cost.

Because Mail is coming to pieces and there is nothing L can do.

"Oh, so you are offering to help me now?" the Shinigami asks sarcastically.

L glances around for inspiration, and tosses the notes of his recent case into Rae's lap.

"First of all, we should find out whether this condition will subside without interference. You should focus on something else. Try reading over my case and tell me if I have missed anything."

Rae snorts, and begins arranging the pages across the floor.

"What, no confidence in your own ability, Lawliet? I can't say I'm really surprised."

L grins inwardly. Sometimes, Rae is so completely predictable that it is almost idiotic. It never misses an opportunity to criticise him, and he knows it will spend hours pouring over his notes, trying to find holes in his logic.

_So easy_.

Or perhaps it is desperately looking for a distraction. Yes. He should be careful not to oversimplify these things.

He reaches for his laptop, and begins scouring international news channels for a new case. He needs the head-start, after all.

* * *

Rae's eyes stay brown for thirteen hours. The longest change yet. L wonders whether it is getting worse, or whether the time frame is simply randomised. It grizzles at him without any particular venom, and then announces that it is going to 'check up on' his case. Rae is a terrible effect on his ego. Perhaps that is how it ought to be.

The last thing he wants is to be that person who is convinced he is still capable, long after everyone around him had disregarded him as incompetent.

Better to know the truth.

And in some strange, removed sort of way, he does feel guilty about what is happening to his Shinigami. Much as it has nothing to do with him, he is about point one five percent certain that he _would_ voluntarily change the colour of Rae's eyes, given the chance. The brown eyes seem to almost denote a different entity, as if something else about the death god changes at the same time. They lack the burning, godawful hatred that L has become both familiar and exhausted with, and seem almost _normal_. Like Rem's eyes. Eye.

Where is Rem, anyway? He needs her help. Is she avoiding coming simply because she does not wish to benefit Rae?

For not the first time, L muses as to what could possibly have happened between them. Rem does not seem like the type to hate easily. Rae must have wronged her quite severely.

When Rae returns, it is all snarls and blood-red eyes, and L pushes his research aside with a sigh.

"What is it now?"

"You are a fucking idiot!"

_You are swearing now?_ _What does that mean? Why are you indulging in such a useless, innately human activity?_

"That statement is neither helpful nor specific."

"He had a _mistress_, you tool. The fourth victim was seeing another woman on the side. Their relationship was kept strictly secret, but there are some pretty damning text messages in his phone. She has ginger hair. She also has a valid alibi at the time of the murder."

L sags a little. He ought to have carefully considered that possibility, but it hadn't even crossed his mind. Has he honestly sunk so low?

"Then we can no longer be sure George Muttby is the murderer," he says quietly. "I understand."

"You can be sure he _isn't_ the murderer, more like," Rae scolds. "That man wouldn't even kill his own _head lice_. I doubt he'd be deliberately responsible for the death of another human being."

"Profiling alone is not evidence," L warns it, already grumpy with the idea of having to re-open his case. "And did you happen to notice the trigger?"

"No, actually. I was a little busy trying to catch a killer and make sure an innocent man doesn't get locked up for life."

"Very commendable," L murmurs. His jealousy feels like a physical entity now, throbbing inside his chest, scrawling the word '_worthless_' in invisible letters over his skin. "But that still won't help us for next time."

"I'm taking this case off you, douche," Rae informs him disgustedly. "Honestly, what the hell is _wrong _with you?"

L would like to know the answer to that question, too.

* * *

When things are a little worse than normal, when work is difficult, when one's entire career and reason for living is crashing around one's feet, when in _doubt_, L has one solution. Just one.

Gelato.

A bucket of gelato.

"You do know it's the middle of winter, right?" Naomi points out gently. It's the first time she's spoken to him in a week. L thinks he ought to smile at her, but it seems like entirely too much effort.

He does not deal with depression particularly well. He has always been a poor loser.

Like Light.

"Mm."

She rests one arm on the back of an empty chair and leans down so that their faces are level.

"You know," she says warmly, "sometimes I'm surprised that your enemies can't locate you just by tracking all the bulk sweet purchases made in England."

She must have actually forgiven him, then. L should be glad. He should care, at the very least. On a professional level, he needs her. More than any of the others. Well, more than any of the other _humans_, anyway.

He wonders if this would be easier if he had someone to talk with about Rae. He no longer trusts his own analysis.

He no longer _trusts_ his own analysis.

"Mm."

She will probably go back to disliking him, if he just keeps grunting at her. Maybe she will even leave. Or perhaps she will scold him, first.

He observes her without emotion. Her long hair is thick and shiny, and it never seems to get in the way, even though she constantly leaves it loose. She's in perfect shape under her street clothes, and the lines around her eyes are faint and few.

She is roughly his age, and yet, he has become old, and she has not.

"L?"

Aging is the same in this second world. The years are the same length, so people accumulate them in the same way. But maturation is different. People tend to gravitate towards being young adults, the phase of life when one is most healthy and cognitively adept. Children seem to grow up quickly, physically and mentally. The elderly regain the strength and abilities of their youth. Watari has some strands of red in his once all-white hair. And yet, Soichiro seemed older than L had predicted. Clearly bodies can still become worn out here, if not by years, then by stress and sadness and care.

"L."

L wonders what will happen to him, in the end. Will he destroy himself, or will his identity be uncovered, dooming him to a life of running forever, and never stopping?

He wishes he could see the counter over his own head. But even the Shinigami eyes will not grant him that particular privilege.

"L!"

He helps himself to another spoonful of lime gelato.

"Yes, N?"

"What is it?"

L pauses for a few seconds, mostly for effect.

"I believe it is you who asked the question, N," he points out politely.

"What ails you, L?" Naomi asks again, sounding mildly irritated. "What's wrong? You have been so upset lately, and for no discernible reason. What is it? And don't tell me it's Matsuda or Grace. I know you, and this is not the way you grieve. This is to do with your work, isn't it?"

L places his thumb against his mouth.

"It is nothing."

It is none of her business. Were he forced to give up the note to another person, he would choose her. But he would much prefer to keep it his secret. Safe.

"I'm sure you are lying," she counters confidently.

"Are you? _How_ sure are you, Naomi? It doesn't do to be so unspecific," he chides.

"One hundred percent," she says quickly.

"You are making that up."

"Am I? Are you _sure_?"

L hangs his head and regards the floor.

"I have trained you well, I see," he breathes. "That is a relief."

This is her cue. This is the part where she speaks her mind, where she tells him the truth. This is where he finally, finally has to hear this from someone he respects.

_It is time_.

Naomi leans down further, and kisses him on the cheek. L jerks, shocked, and touches his skin tentatively.

_Misa_, he thinks stupidly. _I told her I could have fallen for her_.

He cannot remember, now, whether that statement had been an admission or a lie. But this is not Misa. This is someone he trusts and cares for.

"I will help you," she tells him gravely. "Wherever I can, I will help you. I promised that at the beginning, and I keep that promise still. The rest is up to you."

_No._

"Maybe there is a decision I need someone else to make," L tells her weakly.

"If you are intelligent enough to realise that, then you are probably wrong," Naomi replies, with a strangely infuriating smile. "Whatever it is, L, I have faith that you will get through it."

"I don't know what you are talking about," L replies, puzzled.

"Of course you don't. Please let me know if I can help in any way, L. We…we are still a team. All of us."

She leaves without another word, and L watches her go, hand still pressed to the side of his face.

* * *

L plans to turn in the findings of the Strangler case that afternoon, so he spends the rest of the morning re-reading Rae's neatly typed notes, paying careful attention to detail. He checks over the autopsies, which are all consistent with physical trauma and stabbing. He examines Rae's initial list of suspects, and the various circumstances and pieces of evidence that rule out the names, one by one. He notes the time and dates of the various attacks with the witness' reports.

Flawless. Absolutely flawless. L could not have done it better himself.

Rae saunters into the room, humming and wearing a nasty expression.

"I'm re-investigating three of the suspects you ruled out," it informs him sweetly.

L nods, and pulls up a medical history on Arthur Griddon, for no real reason other than that he wants to be seen to be busy. The man suffers from hair lip, short-sightedness, and premature arthritis in his left leg.

L stops, tilts his head, and then checks the photograph of the murderer's boot-prints.

Eight millimetres depth in loamy soil, both left and right. Identical. Not a man who walks with a limp.

Griddon is the only doctor in his district who performs late-term abortions. It is not impossible that someone might have a reason to frame him, and the boots would make such an endeavour laughably easy.

"We need to re-open the Strangler case," L blurts out, somewhat amazed.

Rae missed something. _Rae_.

They are even again.

* * *

"Are you done preening yet?" Rae demands pettily, slamming its hand down on the desk.

"If you break the wood with your superhuman strength, I am going to have a very difficult time covering for you," L points out comfortably.

Rae has not yet succeeded him. He can still do this. They both made errors, but he noticed Rae's and Rae noticed his, and L can learn from this, can grow from this, can become better from this.

A reprieve. A second wind. He is grateful.

"Whatever. I'm pretty sure I've found the guy who's been framing Griddon."

Rae passes him the computer without another word.

_Yes. If we cross-check with each other, we can avoid this happening again._

L thinks that his recent tactics may have been irrational. He forced himself to work faster, and in turn, compromised the quality of his sleuthing. He tried to compete with Rae. He tried to keep the same pace that he kept when they both worked together. Which is, naturally, impossible. Alone, he can never be that brilliant.

_Oh._

_Right._

"I have come to a disturbing revelation," L announces, briefly sitting up straight.

"Go on," Rae drawls. "What is it this time?"

Its eyes are a dull red. So the change isn't absolute. Rather, there is a spectrum. A reflection of what? Proximity of something? Of someone? Rae's own emotions?

_Emotion._

Two epiphanies in as many minutes. His doing quite well today.

"I think that our joint efforts are far superior to the sum of our separate efforts," L pronounces. "I think we ought to work together on cases, all the time."

"I was afraid you were going to say that," Rae replies rudely, but it shifts across the room to sit beside his chair.

"Thank you," L replies. "I will use my free time to find a way to fix your eyes, in return for your help."

"I'm not doing this for you," Rae warns, its eyes traversing straight through rust to brown again. "Oh _no_."

"That is unfortunate," L murmurs, wondering if he ought to test his newly-formed theory. "What does it affect, other than your Shinigami-vision?"

"Nothing," Rae growls. "I can still think perfectly well, thank you."

"Good," L replies. "I would hate for your intelligence quotient to drop any lower. Then you might not be any use to me at all."

Might as well try.

Rae stares at him in stunned silence.

"Ex_cuse_ me?"

"You heard me," L replies blankly. "You need to be as sharp as you can possibly be if you want to work with me."

"You what?" the Shinigami spits. "_I'm_ the one who has successfully completed two cases this week, and you have failed to solve even _one_!"

"Yes, but I have calculated our respective handicaps," L tells it smoothly. "You ought to be capable of solving at least four cases to my one, given your obvious advantages over me. Are you absolutely sure your mind has not been affected?"

Red.

"How _dare_ you, you fucking bas-"

"And there it is," L notes, pointing at Rae's face. "Feel better?"

Rae's mouth snaps shut. It rubs at its eyes carefully.

"What? How…what did you do?"

"It is anger," L explains, confidently. "I do not know the trigger for the change, but your eyes seem to change back whenever you become angry. Now you ought to be able to control them on your own."

"Oh," Rae says awkwardly. "Uh. Thank you."

"You are welcome."

By the time the screen loads, its eyes are already dull again.

_This isn't over yet._

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you for reading.

+ thank you to the people who are taking the time to review this monstrosity. I imagine I would keep going with this fic even if I didn't get any reviews at all, but they make me ridiculously happy all the same. Especially thank you to AishiExcel, and Moss E. :)

+ next bit is coming, hopefully in less than fourteen days! I have written most of it already (for once).

+ I apologise for this chapter being generic and filler-ish. stuff is happening in the next chapter, I promise. there will even be actual romance, soon.


	25. Faux

notes/warnings:

+ swearing.

+ attempts to discuss someone's sex life, albeit not very successfully.

+ mildly implied physical/sexual abuse.

* * *

**Faux**

Her life has been absolute hell ever since she arrived in this place. First, she was kidnapped – _again_ – and sold into slavery to pay off the debt of some worthless and unknown family member. She then became the property of Big Jason, a mafia boss with too much money and a god complex.

As if she would ever believe that such a disgusting creature could be god. She knows who god is. She _met_ him. She knows.

And all she wants is to see him again. To claim what is rightfully hers, finally. After all of this suffering and degradation. After years apart. After death. After everything.

Jason considers her family's debt paid after five years of service. Today. Finally. His paid thugs unfasten the manacles from her slender arms and lead her to a washroom. They even bring her clothes to wear. Fine clothes, like she deserves.

Oh yes. Things are finally going her way.

She pins her hair back and descends the stairs unassisted. Jason is waiting by the car, clad in a crisp cream suit and designer sunglasses. An expensive cigar dangles from his foul lips. She hates him with every fibre of her being, but he is a powerful man. She has to respect that, at the very least.

She would like to be powerful, too.

"The limousine will take you to the nearest town," he drawls. "You'll have to make your own way from there."

"Thank you," she replies curtly. "Now, if you will excuse me, I never want to see your face again."

He grins at her boyishly. He chills her to the core. How can a person have so little perspective? He _uses_ people mercilessly. And then he lends money to another struggling family in exchange for another human toy.

He is despicable.

"Aw, come on. It wasn't all bad, was it? We had some fun."

It _was_ all bad. She will have nightmares for years to come, maybe for the rest of…however many lives she has left. But that doesn't matter. How she feels doesn't matter. Everything will be bearable once she finds _him_.

"Well, that's mostly why I came to see you one last time," Jason tells her. "You see, I've got a proposition for you."

"The answer is 'no'," she replies glibly. "Now please move out of my way."

She cannot stand the sight of him. She has memories, very fresh memories, of him leering at her while he…while…

"No problem. It's just…heck, I like you. I thought I'd make you an offer. See, I've got this guy in high security at one of my other properties. He was a down payment, like you."

"That is not my problem," she informs him harshly.

"Of course it isn't," he agrees smugly. "It's just that I've heard you mention his name. Thought you ought to know that his head goes on the chopping block in three months. And his family don't have a nickel to spare. So sad. Smart guy, too. He could probably work the money off himself, if he weren't impounded."

Big Jason sounds positively gleeful about the whole situation.

"What was his name?" she asks, a little too quickly.

"Name?" Jason asks, curling his lip. "Hmm. Hmm. Japanese guy. Ya…tako? Yachiko? They all sound the same. Yagami?"

"Light!" she blurts out, her heart racing.

"That's it! That's the one. Psychopath. Boy, is he some fun to play with. Heh."

"Stop it," she demands frantically, bile and terror rising in her throat. "Stop it! Let him go. Don't you understand that he is god? He won't forgive you for this! You _need_ to let him go!"

Jason has Light. No. This is not acceptable. She needs to make another deal with him. Something. Anything.

"Well, unless you want to pay off his debt," Jason muses, pursing his lips. "But I wouldn't let a guy like that go easily. It'd be…expensive."

"I can pay. You know I can pay," she says quickly. "What do you want? Five years? Ten years?"

Light will make it all worth her while, when she saves him. The world will treat her with respect. An Aphrodite. A queen. A god.

"I don't want your miserable little body any more," he sneers. "I want solid payment. You'd have to take on a job for me."

Kill someone? That's fine. She's _good_ at that.

"Name the job."

Jason laughs horribly.

"For Yagami? You'd have to take out my worst enemy."

He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a thick envelope. With disgust, she realises that he has predicted her actions perfectly.

Utter, utter bastard. He will get his comeuppance. Oh yes. Kira does not like bullies.

"That shouldn't be a problem," she assures him.

"Oh, this will be a problem. In here is everything I know about him, which can be summed up in five words. The detective known as L."

She almost laughs.

"You want me to kill an enigma?"

"Said it would be hard, didn't I?" he crows. "Eh, why not just leave it? You're beautiful. You'll find some other guy, right?"

"I'll do it," she reiterates. L was Light's first enemy. It will be a pleasure to send him to an early grave. Again.

Justice will prevail. No more wars. No more suffering. A perfect world. Their perfect world.

"Excellent. Inside is also something to help you with your quest. Use it however you wish. I have taken measures to ensure that you cannot harm me."

She takes the envelope, which turns out to be surprisingly heavy. Then Jason helps her into the car. The touch of his clammy hand makes her skin crawl, but she consoles herself with thoughts of freeing Light.

She is technically a free woman. Technically.

"Thank you," she replies stonily.

"You have three months," he continues, leaning in the window. "Three months until he accidentally dies. Good luck."

When they reach the nearest town, she locks herself in a public restroom and tears open the envelope. Inside is a notebook, bound in leather, achingly familiar.

"Hiya, toots," someone says from right behind her.

* * *

Things go smoothly for the next six weeks or so. They power through the cases. L does not dwell on his own inadequacies, and Rae is generally able to restore its eyes easily and quickly whenever they change. Sometimes L needs to join in and aggravate, but usually it can find some flaw of his to rage about without any assistance whatsoever.

The two of them save a lot of lives and catch a lot of criminals, and L becomes grudgingly satisfied with his life once more.

"I am fourteen percent certain that the murderer works at the same facility as the last two victims. What do you think?"

"I think you are far too certain," Rae replies derisively. "This guy is clever. He wouldn't kill people with whom he could be so easily linked. And Yates Incorporated is a cutthroat business. People would suspect workmates."

"Absolutely correct," L intones. "My actual percentage was about point eight."

"You were testing me?" Rae asks, obviously trying not to laugh out loud. "You're certainly feeling confident tod-"

"Brown," L warns.

"You elitist, arrogant dick! You sit there, and you criticise other people, and you humiliate people, and you fucking _torture_ people, and you _stink_, and-"

"You're good."

Rae sighs and relaxes again.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Where were we before we started discussing my personal hygiene?"

"Probably not a colleague," the Shinigami reiterates, slipping straight back into detective mode. "Which leaves, what? How deeply have we investigated those that benefited from his will?"

"I was thinking the same thing," L replies cheerfully. "We ought to…someone is coming. Mail, I think. The footsteps are too light to be anyone else."

"Oh," Rae says, with a strange lilt to its voice that L doesn't like. "_Oh_. Should I leave the room, then?"

L rolls his eyes. Does the Shinigami actually, honestly _think_ he has romantic feelings for Mail? The man is like a son to him. Like a son. A son who has been studiously avoiding him for quite some time now.

Mail kicks the door open in lieu of knocking. It is a habit that he picked up from Mello, and it makes L's heart ache a little.

If he gets close enough to Rae, maybe he can finally find that loophole he's been searching for. There ought to be some sort of trial, at the very least. He ought to be able to _speak_ for Mello.

Redemption. Maybe that is the replacement for a fair trial. How archaic. Throw the witch in the water and see if she drowns.

"M."

"L," Mail replies gruffly. "My computers are outdated. I need to replace all of the parts to keep working."

"That is not a problem," L tells him. "Tell Watari what you need. The price is irrelevant."

"Right. Thanks."

The younger man turns to leave. His hair is tied back with a rubber band, and his clothes are so filthy and ill-fitting that he makes L look like an up-and-coming fashion model.

"Matt."

The single syllable stops him dead in his tracks.

"I hope you're referring to the thing covering your carpet," he says darkly. "Because that name is dead. It died with _him_."

"I'm afraid it is still how I think of you," L admits gently.

"I don't fuckin' _care_!"

"I don't blame you," L continues. "But please, return to the way you were before the night we got drunk. Your aversion to me is starting to affect the quality of your work."

"Aww, you want him back," Rae croons.

Mail stomps over to his desk, eyes flint-hard and cold.

"It's not like you even really _need_ the rest of us," he hisses. "You already solve most of the cases on your own. Why don't you just go off by _yourself_?"

"I will not leave you," L assures him steadily, and Mail wrinkles his nose and backs away. "That is not a proposition, Mail. We have a business arrangement, do we not?"

"I know!" Mail replies, in a slightly softer tone that indicates perhaps he did not know at all. "I know, I just. I have run out of things to try, and I _told_ you things, and they were my things, and then you _touched_ me, and I'm _his_, damnit! And _why do you care about me_? Just, just, just…just fuck off, okay? Leave me alone. Treat me like you treat that man. And if you don't need us any more, then just _go_!"

L runs the words through his head a few times, and still has no idea what exactly Mail is feeling. Which means that Mail probably has no idea what he's feeling, either. All he knows is how to grieve.

"He needs counselling," Rae declares. "And possibly sex. Hey, you can do both of those things. Can't you? Can you? You know, I've never even _seen_ you-"

"I _would _leave," L replies loudly. "If I did not need you, M, I would leave. This is a lull, that is all. I am taking on some easier cases to pass the time. You may do the same. The important thing is that we are all here, together, when the more difficult criminals start causing trouble once more."

"Huh."

"You know that it is true," L continues. "I do not indulge in unnecessary emotional attachment. I care for you because you are valuable to me. Because you are the best at your job. And… I know you are his. I have not stopped knowing that for a second. Affection is not automatically the same as romance, you know."

Mail seems to be fighting with some unknown inward force.

"I know," he mutters, finally. "Whatever. Just don't touch me again. And…and you should care about _him_, not me!"

He strides out of the room without another word, his coat flapping behind him. L watches him until he is out of sight, and then gets up to pull the door shut.

"He wants you," Rae pipes up, unhelpfully. "I'm two hundred percent certain."

"No, you are being a tool," L quips.

"I was not. And I was somewhat serious. Maybe you need to dump your father complex and sleep with him. It might make him realise there are other people in the world."

"I have every confidence that doing so would destroy any trust he had left in me, and probably lead to him killing a lot of people from lack of direction," L replies.

"'Every confidence' isn't even a specific value," Rae crows. "You're totally not sure. Besides, maybe you need it, too."

"Because suddenly, inexplicably, you care about my needs. When it suits your purpose, which is presumably to sabotage our working relationship?"

"Say what you like," Rae huffs. "I've been with you for four years, and in that time I've never even seen you touch yourse-"

"Stop. How do you even know so much about sex?"

Rae shrugs.

"I spend a lot of my time with humans. Most of them tend to actually have relationships now and then."

_You spend a lot of time with humans, or you are human? Were human? How long has it been since you entered hell. Or are you one of the ones Rem spoke of, who are tested before they enter hell? How long has this test been going on? _

_What are you supposed to do? Make me use the death note?_

"I see," L replies dismissively. "With your apparently extensive knowledge of human emotions, surely you can see that Mail is deeply in love with someone else?"

_If your eyes are becoming damaged, does that mean your time is running out?_

"Yes," Rae agrees. "Yes, I can. And so can you. But whatever you say, you do love him. And I'd wager you'd do anything for him. Even if it was only going to make him the slightest bit happier. Isn't that right?"

L suspects that statement is exactly right, but he prefers not to think about it.

* * *

Rae continues to have nightmares, and L wakes early one morning to find it leaning heavily on its arms, clutching the floor like it is frightened of falling.

"It is just a dream," L says, comfortingly. "It is neither real, nor symbolic."

"You and I both suspect it is symbolic," Rae grits. "I just…that _boy_. I hate him!"

"Do you? What does he look like?"

L crawls out of bed, and ambles over to squat next to his Shinigami.

"I don't know," Rae snarls. "Not anyone that I recognise."

"Hair colour?"

"I don't know! I didn't pay that much attention."

"You said he seemed important somehow," L counters. "Eye colour?"

"Brown," Rae whispers. "That's…that's the thing, L. They're…it's like he is possessing me."

_Interesting. Is that the human I'm seeing in you, then? _

"Brown is the most common eye colour in the world," L reasons. "Even if you were being possessed, there is no particular reason to blame this boy. Besides, your personality doesn't exactly change."

Not exactly. Maybe a little. It's as if one is a softer version of the other. Brown-eyed Rae and red-eyed Rae.

"I _know_. I just. I hate this. I hate all of this. I just want to become king and make the worlds better places to live. Why is this happening to me?"

_So frightened. _

_I am sorry_.

Today, they solved three cases. Three. He cannot deny it. Rae is a part of his team, now. Rae is under his care.

"I don't know," L replies firmly. "But I promise you, I will do everything I can to protect you."

"From what?" Rae asks. "From imaginary boys? From disability? From failure?"

It doesn't ask him if he will write in the note.

"I don't know, yet," L tells it. "But I will find out. Brown."

"I fucking hate everything," Rae howls, punching at the air, bitterly angry.

This time, its eyes do not change back.

* * *

"Hm. Two convicted murderers dropped dead yesterday, and another five this morning. Suspected heart attacks. Strange."

"This is ridiculous," Rae mutters.

"That another death note might be circulating?" L asks, shoving another fistful of liquorice into his mouth.

"No. That my _eyes_ aren't reverting," Rae snaps, like that is the only thing going on in the world. "It's been almost two days. I can't see anyone's name or lifespan. You promised to protect me!"

"I am sorry," L replies, guiltily. "I have been thinking about it, I assure you. I believe the king is lying to you."

"Lying about _what_?"

"I don't know, yet," L confesses. "But I think if we can figure that out, we will know how to treat your condition."

"I can't take you to see the king," Rae tells him, knocking its skull against the wall. "He refuses to consort with humans."

"And the queen?"

"Is completely useless."

"Could we use that to extract information from her?" L asks hopefully.

"Definitely not. She and the king absolutely support each other."

"Right, okay. Can you contact Rem?"

"Er. No. How would that be useful?"

"She knows more about the Shinigami realm than you do," L protests, feeling a little insulted on Rem's behalf.

"And she despises me. She'd be happy to let me fall to pieces, L!"

"Right, right. I need to think about this for a little longer, then. Maybe a lot longer."

Fixing Rae's eyes is easily the most difficult task he has ever accepted. He has absolutely no idea of even the basic biology of a Shinigami.

"I'll look into the strange criminal deaths, then," Rae grumbles.

"You could work on getting angry," L suggests.

"I've been furious at least six times an hour since this started. I've raged about the king, and this task, and the weather, and various humans, and Rem, and many other things. There is no improvement."

Yes. That much is painfully obvious. L's brilliant strategy has suddenly ceased to yield results. And there is no apparent explanation, no trigger that L can locate. Rae has had the nightmare hundreds of times before, and nothing else has changed. Not externally, anyway. It is certainly still _capable_ of fury, so the change is somewhere in the completely ambiguous connection between Rae's emotion and Rae's iris colour.

But he has solved impossible cases before.

"I see. I will keep thinking."

"I don't see how you are going to come up with an answer when I cannot," the Shinigami tells him. "But I appreciate it, I suppose."

"I keep my promises," L replies simply.

* * *

Chillingly, the killings do not stop. They merely diversify. Two in China, four in New Zealand, one in Russia, and three in Canada. All convicted serial killers. All died of heart attacks.

L rubs at his face. There is no denying where this is going, certainly not to himself.

"This is strange," Rae notes, tracing the screen with one skeletal finger. "It's like-"

"Kira," L interrupts tersely. "I know."

He just doesn't know _why_. He feels as if his chest has been put in a vice. It is happening again. It is all happening again.

How long before he hears the bells?

"Are you okay?" Rae probes. "You're breaking out in a sweat, L."

"It can't be him again," L says weakly. "It can't be."

"You're talking about Kira, right? Of course it can't be him. This person has no obvious purpose. They're killing random criminals, and not very many at once. There are far more names and faces being advertised on international news. Why stop at so few? This person is seeking attention, not justice. This _must_ be a copycat."

L sucks in a deep, noisy breath, and tries to force away the fear that grips him. Light isn't here. Light is in hell. Even if - heaven forbid – he is released from hell, he will go to the third world. Not here.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, scrubbing at his face. "I just…"

"You were pretty screwed over by that case, weren't you?" Rae surmises, sounding almost concerned. "Maybe you shouldn't have taken him on, if you were going to get hurt so badly."

"I had to. I had to then, and I have to now. Copycat or original, this new killer is my responsibility, too."

"You realise this person probably has a death note, right?" the Shinigami points out unnecessarily. "It will still be dangerous. But, you know. This is different. You won't be alone."

"You're going to help me? I thought you'd be supporting this sort of thing," L queries, surprised.

"Strangely enough, I'm not a fan of people who kill for attention. Faux-Kira is no better than his victims."

L taps on the desk idly, and without any particular rhythm.

"But this is not fair. I promised you I would solve the problem with your eyes, first. I cannot ask you to assist me when I am abandoning your cause."

"Temporarily, right?" Rae asks, and L nods hard. "Right. Then I have decided that we will both focus on this case and get it solved as soon as possible. I can deal with these eyes for a little while."

"That sounds like the right decision," L says warmly, and smiles.

He is not alone.

* * *

"So how is killing random criminals going to help you uncover L's real name?" Ryuk enquires loudly, tiny pieces of apple spraying from his mouth.

She smiles at him coldly, but doesn't glance up from her notebook. She's so _boring_. He _hates_ assignments.

"Light told me about this man," she says softly. "He was fascinated by Kira. If it seems that Kira has returned, L will do everything in his power to get close to him."

"Ah, got it. So you're letting him come to you?"

"Correct."

"So, you're just going to sit in front of that computer twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, until L comes knocking on your front door?"

"Also correct."

_Damn_. He possibly might die of boredom. And lack of apples, because he's just eaten the last one. Doesn't this lady ever need food? Doesn't _anyone_ ever do anything interesting any more?

Three weeks until he can make his big suggestion, according to the script. Until then, he will have to amuse himself and lay low.

"Swell," he grumbles, and decides to check the cupboards. One more time. Just in case anything interesting has appeared.

* * *

"I believe faux-Kira is residing in the United States," L concludes. "Each day, he seems to target the criminal who has made the most national headlines. The rate of killing has also changed, considering that in the initial period, several killings took place on a daily basis"

"Different pattern," the Shinigami says thoughtfully. "See? Attention-seeking."

"I don't doubt it," L says, indulgently. "You have done well."

"I know."

When it is not angsting about its eyes, Rae has been inexplicably cheerful of late. It hasn't even shouted at him in a while, which is nice.

"I suppose we have been lucky to avoid copycats thus far, really," he intones. "Kira is still worshipped in some parts of the world. And there are a lot of people seeking that level of fame."

"Well, yeah, but what bothers me is that our new friend doesn't even share Kira's ideals," Rae points out. "A death note in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing."

"The wrong hands?" L chuckles. "What, are you telling me that Light Yagami used it _responsibly_?"

"Was there a lower crime rate?" Rae asks.

"Yes, but there was also a criminal on the loose who was worse than all the others combined," L counters carefully. "That argument is irrelevant."

"But aren't _we_ trying to reduce the crime rate?"

"We are trying to bring some justice to the world. There is a difference, Rae," L explains. In some ways, the Shinigami is more mature than he is. And yet, at times, it is so childish and idealistic that he worries for its future subjects.

"Look, if that is all true, then why are you okay with _me_ selectively killing evil people with the death note?"

"You are not a human," L states. "I do not worry about your actions because they fall outside of my jurisdiction. What you do will be considered an act of nature. It is not up to a human to condemn other humans to death in such a manner."

"So you are vehemently against countries that still have the death penalty in place?"

"That is different. There is a trial. There is evidence. Multiple people decide. The process is complicated and difficult. Murder should not be easy, Rae. We humans should never take it lightly."

"Har har."

"Yes, quite. Now, the question is, is faux-Kira seeking the attention of anyone in particular?"

"You are so vain, do you know that?"

"I didn't necessarily mean me," L clarifies. "He might be looking for Light himself. Or Misa Amane. Or any of the original Kira's followers. Or members of the initial investigation team. There isn't enough of a pattern yet to suspect that he's giving any particular message in the killings, so it is impossible to do anything but theorise at this stage."

The familiarity of the situation still bothers him. Sometimes he can still feel the weight of the handcuffs around his wrist. Sometimes he still worries he's about to drop out of his chair at any second.

"Right."

"We know that the death note can kill in more interesting ways, so why is he so persistently sticking to the default method? Is he building up to something?"

"You haven't told your team about this yet, have you?" Rae asks, horribly perceptive. "Cause I'm pretty sure they'd all be in here right now, otherwise."

"Yes. That is right."

"So, why not? I thought we wanted to do this as quickly as possible."

"I do not wish to frighten them," L replies honestly. "Naomi, Raye, Mail, Watari. They were all destroyed by the Kira case last time. I do not wish them to have to relive it for a second longer than necessary. They will be told when they need to know."

"I still don't understand why you didn't cut your losses and walk away," Rae says idly. "Was your pride really worth so much more than your life?"

"Other people's lives were worth much more than my own," L tells it.

For once, the Shinigami has no retort.

"Someone who truly wanted justice would have let themselves be discovered rather than destroy innocent lives," L rants. "The only honourable way to do something like that is to accept that you have become a criminal in order to save other people, and be punished the same way."

"That is_ completely_ unjust-"

"Maybe in your world, Shinigami. But that is the way things work down here."

"Whatever. Arguing isn't solving this case, you know."

L frowns. If anything goes wrong with this case, he needs Rae to back him up. And yet they cannot even agree upon the basic principles of right and wrong.

Of course they can't. Rae is a _Shinigami_. It kills people for a _living_.

What is he thinking?

"Are you going to eat that enormous gooey thing on the table, or just leave it there to annoy me?" Rae asks.

"It's a blancmange," L explains. He can recognise a peace offering when he hears one. "Would you like some?"

"No."

"But it is delectable."

"You just stuck your finger in it. Now the whole thing is tainted. If was tempted before, I'm not going to be any more."

"Would you like something else? Watari is an excellent chef. I could probably even get you something…you know. Not sweet."

"Savoury?"

_Crash_.

L spins on his heel, startled. The door to his room has been flung open with considerable force, and standing in the doorway is one Naomi Penber, with her fists clenched and her pretty face arranged into a frightened scowl.

L processes the situation. He was arguing. Distracted. He didn't hear her walking along the hallway. Which means that she must have been standing outside for at least long enough to hear part of his conversation with Rae.

Which is fine. He can pass it off as a phone call.

No, he can't. He was offering to share dessert. Dessert that is right in front of him. Ah. That would be the reason for her expression, then.

_Oh dear._

"Who are you talking to, L?" she enquires tersely. "What's going on? Is there someone else in here?"

Rae, helpful as ever, promptly walks through the wall and leaves him alone to deal with her. L stares at his deputy blankly. First, he needs to find out exactly what she heard. Then he needs to come up with a plausible excuse.

For having an imaginary friend.

This ought to be a challenge.

"I do not understand," he deadpans. "What are you so upset about, N?"

"Don't you lie to me," she says fiercely, striding across the room until there is only a few inches worth of space between them. "What the _hell_ are you doing?"

"Researching potential cases," L tells her blithely. "Do you wish to accuse me of something?"

"You were having a conversation about the blancmange," Naomi says, her eyes flickering back and forth, scanning the room. "Who were you talking to, L? There…there isn't anyone here."

"Am I not allowed to talk to myself?" L asks, voice carefully neutral. He and Naomi both know that there is nowhere to hide another person in this room, and they are about twenty stories above ground level. Anyone that might potentially have been with him must have escaped via the window.

Sure enough, that is exactly where Naomi's eyes linger. But the timing is wrong. He was still talking casually when she burst in, and of course, she hasn't seen anyone leave.

He can guess at what must be going through her mind right now.

_What to do, what to do?_

"No, this was definitely half a conversation I heard," she snaps. "With a definite pauses, as if you were getting unspoken replies."

"Are you certain?"

"I am not _stupid_!"

L curls his toes.

"And if I were talking to someone, what business would it be of yours?" he asks coldly. "Am I so untrustworthy that you must check up on me? I suppose, as your employer, it is good that I know how you really feel."

"How I really feel is _worried_, L," she grits, tugging at a strand of hair. "I wasn't coming to spy. I simply heard voices, and. Damnit, all I really want is some assurance that you aren't going mad, or being haunted by some supernatural monster, or something."

There is absolutely nothing useful he can say. Certainly, he still has authority over her and can end this discussion here and now. But if he doesn't come up with a good reason, she will eternally suspect him. He knows her nature. She will be compelled to monitor him, out of concern. He will not be able to work with Rae easily. He will have to spend most of his time downstairs, around others, in order to assuage her fears.

And he may never convince her.

"Why do you think that?" he asks weakly. "Why can it not be that I have a woman hidden up here? Why am I afforded no privacy?"

"Right, because she'll totally believe that you suddenly have a sex life," Rae sneers, floating through the open window behind Naomi's back, something clutched between its giant hands.

"Are you trying to be funny?" she growls. "Just, look. You can trust me. Just tell me what is going _on_."

"Admit to it," Rae advises. "Admit that you have someone here, and tell her you've been lonely and that you have every right to company."

L tries not to look at it directly. Things will only get worse if Naomi catches him staring into the middle distance.

"Trust me," Rae says. "I'll get you out of this."

_Fantastic_. He is forced to trust a childish Shinigami who doesn't understand why Kira was a bad person. Splendid. Wonderful.

But…it has been treating him reasonably well lately. Heck, it hasn't even been getting properly angry with him when he has _tried_ to rile it, for its own sake.

And it isn't as if L has any other options.

"Am I supposed to be denied companionship as part of my job?" he asks Naomi, resisting the sudden urge to cross his fingers. "Is it necessary for me to always be alone?"

"You…you have something up here, L?" she asks tremulously.

"Tell her to check under the bed," Rae urges.

"The bed," L confesses, mystified.

Naomi snatches the cover from the bed and looks underneath. Two yellow eyes stare back at her.

"What are you?" she demands, squinting a little.

"Woof!" the thing replies.

* * *

Naomi apologises to him seven times, with heartening sincerity.

"Really, it is fine. I pay you to be perceptive, and you were. What if I were being controlled by someone else? It is important that we all notice and investigate odd behaviours in each other."

Naomi slams her teacup down on the table.

"But really," she says disgustedly. "Here I was expecting a _Shinigami_ or something, and it hadn't even occurred to me that you might just be harbouring a pet? I acted irrationally, and I accept that. You are our leader, after all."

"I was still doing something technically illegal," L sighs, reaching down to ruffle the dog's ears. "Body corporate does not allow animals in this building."

"Can't you just buy body corporate?" Raye asks. "She's really cute, you know."

She is a six-month-old spaniel cross. She has no tags, no collar, and no microchip. Probably obtained from the local pound.

Rae has done very well.

"How long have you had her?"

"A week or so," L replies vaguely.

"She cannot stay here, L," Naomi tells him gently. "I know you are attached to her, but she's going to grow far too big to stay in an apartment. Even one of this capacity."

L sighs again. He is attempting to appear as emotionally invested in the dog as possible, otherwise the situation will become intolerably suspicious.

It is, apparently, socially acceptable for people to attempt to hold conversations with their pets. Which makes not one lick of sense to L, but he is hardly in a position to complain.

"I understand," he replies listlessly. "I just…I just want her to have a home, I suppose. And dogs are loyal and can be taught commands. Is it possible she could live remotely and still be a part of the team?"

He knows the answer already. Dogs do not travel well, are too recognisable, and are easily manipulated and tracked. The Penbers will 'talk him out of it', the fluffy canine will find a new home, and he will be free to work with Rae unquestioned.

If his Shinigami were human, L would feel inclined to buy it a drink right now.

* * *

"Don't you patronise me," she whispers coldly. "Don't you _dare_ patronise me."

Raye rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

"I'm not trying to, honey. I just don't understand why you did what you did today."

"Because I heard him _talking_ to someone!" she explains, frustrated at the way he refuses to sympathise. "After everything I said about trusting him and wanting to help him, and he's still…"

"A few hours ago you said yourself that you acted irrationally," Raye tells her, puzzled. "Surely that's the end of it. Besides, it was a _dog_. That's no great secret. The man should have some privacy in his life, surely."

_It wasn't just a dog_, she thinks, fiercely.

"I think there are other things he is keeping hidden," she replies. "At least one thing."

Raye groans.

"_What_ one thing?"

"I don't _know_ what it is!" she snaps. "If I did, this would be easy!"

"So because he hid a dog, you think he's hiding something else?"

She twirls her hair around her finger, tugging at it sharply.

"No. The way he's acting doesn't seem right. L wasn't attached enough to the dog."

"He's hardly the most emotional man in the world, Naomi," Raye says comfortingly, reaching for her.

"Back off," she warns darkly. "I can't explain it, okay? Something else is wrong. Something important. Call it intuition, or whatever."

"There's no such thing as intuition," Raye says poisonously, clearly stung by her momentary rejection. "Only cold, hard evidence. I thought you, of all people, would know that. Especially since you're practically his _disciple_."

She lifts her head slowly, haughtily. He wants to make this nasty, does he? He ought to know by now that she's no good little wife. She'll speak her damn mind.

"From him, I learned the style that suits me best," she tells him smoothly. "And I am his _deputy_."

"You'd do anything for him, wouldn't you," he grits. "More than you'd do for _me_!"

"And that's _exactly_ as it should be!"

There is silence. Her damning words still echo around the room, around the inside of her skull. There. She said it. What was he expecting?

She made her choice. A man she cannot trust over a man who cannot quite believe in her. Because the former represents a hero, and the latter is still just a man.

Raye stands where he is, shaking. It is possible that he's read into that statement incorrectly. In fact, with his selfish view of the world, that is incredibly likely.

She doesn't mind that much. She's never argued with him before. She's barely raised her voice to him. She has always placated and smiled and comforted, grateful for what he has given up, that they might have this life together.

"And that's how it is, is it?" he asks, voice raspy and weak. "You…him. After all this time."

She touches her wedding ring.

"I would hope," she says, a touch more gently, "that you would make the same choice. Saving the world should take precedence over me."

How did it turn into this? She's _angry_ at L right now, damnit.

"You are my _wife_," he roars. "I _married_ you! Or did you not notice, being too busy being married to your job. Or married to your _boss_?"

"Now you are being childish."

"_Am _I? Because I'm the only one here who is _adult_ enough to want a life as well as saving the universe? Are we not allowed to be happy?"

Ah. The clincher. Yes.

"I am happy here," she replies. "You know that."

"With a man you cannot trust?"

"I will figure him out," she replies, with a confidence comprised mostly of anger. "And we'll move on. That's what we do."

"I see. 'We'. You and L."

"Why would you say that? Are you suddenly not a part of this team?"

Raye slaps his open palm against the wall.

"Maybe I don't want to be, anymore," he growls. "You know, I feel like I understand you less and less every day."

"Ah," she says serenely, sensing he is at breaking point. "Perhaps you should try _listening_, then."

"Screw you," Raye replies, voice quietly vehement. "I have given you _everything_!"

He doesn't wait for a reply. He turns on his heel and leaves.

Naomi presses her head against the cool wall. Her mind is a mess. She does not _want_ L to be hiding something. He's better now, damnit. He's gotten back on his feet, closer to the person he was before. She wants him to go on being her ideal role model. She wants to _grow up_ and _become_ what he is.

So she'll work it out. It may even be a test for her. Who knows, when it comes to L?

Her husband just walked out, and all she can think about is L. She's angry. She's been a bit off-kilter, just recently. Her body doesn't listen to her the way it used to. She is getting old, maybe. Or sick.

She ought to see a doctor. When she has time. Maybe next month. If she is ill, she doesn't want Raye to know. What kind of a wife does that make her, then?

She isn't sure. But she is a damn good detective, and that is enough for her. That is what matters.

Later, she will go after her husband, and try to find a way to undo what she has said. He is a good man, after all. He just doesn't understand. He does not share her passion for what they do.

It's not as if she doesn't love him.

Love is such a complicated thing.

L is such a complicated thing.

She is so tired. Exhausted. She feels like L looks. Like Raye looks, on his bad days. She leans her weight into the wall, comforting pressure across her forehead.

Intuition versus intellect. She knows there is something wrong, but she has no evidence. L and Raye and Mail will all argue the case with her.

"I could really use your help right now, Touta," she says fondly, to the empty air.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ I have nothing to say about the story this time, except that it is making my brain hurt. I'm starting to panic and pray like hell that I can get everyone to where I want them to be by the end of this fic. and without having to evoke too much suspension of belief.

+ thank you for reading, and for reviewing.


	26. Manipulation

notes/warnings:

+ swearing.

+ mild mentions of sex.

+ mild death-god-on-death-god violence.

music: _ain't no sunshine_, by eva cassidy

* * *

**Manipulation**

L stays awake for several days straight, watching the death toll rise. He is painfully aware of the unease and speculation surrounding this case. Once the media makes the connection and announces that Kira has returned, the whole world will panic.

Which is presumably what faux-Kira wants. And what L _doesn't_ want. He needs to move fast.

Of course, this new Kira will not be expecting L to have a Shinigami as a colleague.

_Hm._

"If we can deduce his approximate location, we could send you to search that area," L tells Rae thoughtfully. "You will be able to spot another of your kind quite easily, yes?"

"Maybe, if they are out in the open. But if they are inside a building somewhere, it could still take weeks of searching. Plus, and I don't know if you've noticed, but Shinigami move around. I could quite easily miss them completely."

"But it is more likely that you would see them, correct?" L queries, thumbing his chin.

He cannot use the same trick as last time. Faux-Kira will be expecting that, if he's done his research. He will not be stupid enough to kill someone purporting to be L on international television.

Probably.

"I suppose."

"I have no choice but to take this case on," L reiterates quietly, bowing his head. "If it is – and it _isn't_ – but if it is him, he will kill me. And I will not even have written in the note for you."

"Okay, one, I doubt he's going to kill you. And two, you don't need to say such things to convince me to help you. I don't like faux-Kira any more than you do."

The terror he feels for this case isn't perpetual. It comes in waves. And between those waves, he feels strangely calm. He thinks that has something to do with meeting the less-than-monstrous gorgon. And a lot to do with the giant standing next to him.

Rae will protect him. It wants him alive, after all. He can place his faith in its ulterior motives.

"I know."

L is wearing headphones over his ears, and he is speaking at a softer volume than usual. He has hidden sensors along the hallway floor at five, ten, and fifteen meters distance from his room. The puppy served its purpose, but Naomi obviously lacks confidence in him. It will not take much for her to suspect him once more, and she will not be so easily dissuaded a second time.

"Rae," he says carefully. "I need you to do something else for me, as well."

He gets up and locks the door. Then he stands in the middle of the room, reaches under his shirt, and tugs the death note from its fastenings.

"I need you to take this," he requests. "For a few weeks, at least."

The Shinigami holds up both its hands, palms flat.

"What? Why?"

"Because it would not take very much searching for a member of my team to find it, that is why."

"I think you'd notice if someone stuck their hand up your shirt, L. Even _you_ aren't that oblivious."

"But if I get in a physical fight with someone, if I stretch and twist at the wrong angle, if my shirt is accidentally cut –"

"All things that haven't happened in the past four years, so there's no great likelihood-"

"But if it _does_ happen now, Naomi is certain to notice."

"How certain?"

"Ninety-six percent, I believe."

"Right," Rae groans, snatching the note from his hands. "Okay, fine. Three weeks, tops."

L wishes he could help it in a more substantial way.

"Agreed," L replies warmly.

_Twenty-one days is a lot of time to lose,_ he thinks. _You must be quite convinced I will use it in the end, no matter what_.

The thought bothers him a lot less than it ought to.

* * *

It is late. L is having trouble focusing. Five years ago, he would have laughed at the mere suggestion of him, _L_, ever having difficulty paying attention to a case. Five years ago he could still pretend that he'd never dropped out of his own chair with bile in his throat and a dead heart.

The only light in the room emanates from the screen in front of him, luminescent blue, barely potent enough to cast shadows across the desk. His eyes are drawn to the glow, but...

Eye.

His _eye_ is drawn to the glow, but he's not really _processing_. Names and faces. Dates and times. Always heart attacks, nothing special. The information is being sent directly to him from various federal governments. The deaths are being concealed. A concerted effort is being made to prevent this information from becoming public.

L might not be able to stop faux-Kira yet, but he _can_ prevent the bastard from becoming a terrorist. What people do not know, cannot frighten them.

That's why they concealed his mother's death, after all.

And L, L should be frightened. L should be bursting his brains trying to defeat this newcomer that just might send him the same way the last one did. But he is tired. His back hurts. And with all the worrying about Mail, and Naomi walking in on him, and the new case, Rae has pretty much been placed on the backburner.

He remembers the night he was drunk. When it first found out about its eyes. It was openly terrified. Now it avoids the issue and changes the subject and soldiers on, even though its eyes have been stuck on brown for over two weeks. The Shinigami is tolerating its condition, because it wants to help him solve this case.

What consequences will there be for it? Will it die? He cannot have it die. Will it fail to be king? Will it be trapped in hell forever?

Why doesn't anger work any more? Anger always worked in the past. Nothing has changed.

Who was that boy?

Suddenly, his vision is blocked, his entire world rendered completely black. There is a familiar presence right behind him.

"Hallo," he says politely.

"What time is it, L?" Rae asks sweetly.

L thinks. He was looking at the clock just a moment ago. It is…it is…. Well, he cannot really remember to the exact minute, but he knows it is at least…

He has no idea, actually.

"What is the title of the page you've got on the screen, L?" Rae asks, tone bored and strangely paternal.

_Hmm._

"I am not entirely certain of that."

Rae sighs.

"How many hours since you last slept, L?"

"Two hundred and thirty-"

"Bedtime," Rae says firmly. "Switch your computer off. Your research will be useless if you're this spaced out."

"May I have the use of my eye back in order to complete that task?" L hazards, moving his head against the bony arm that keeps him blinded.

"No."

"Ah."

No one has ever told him to stop before. He cannot rationalise exactly why the Shinigami's actions make him feel slightly better, but they do.

He will fix its eyes. As soon as this case is over. No matter what.

* * *

It turns out that L doesn't need any clever televisions broadcasts. Faux-Kira gives away his location without any prompting at all. He kills an accused rapist whose identity was accidentally released the day before his trial concluded. The offending newspaper was a local one, circulated only in Sacramento, California.

Easy.

Almost too easy.

There is another reason he has been so reluctant to include the rest of his team on this case. Some of them are going to take news of another death note very, very badly. Violently, even. And possibly with a side helping of setting nearby buildings and people on fire.

But if they are closing in, he needs to involve the others. He doesn't want to give them any further reasons to distrust him, after all.

It is time to inform Naomi and Raye. Vaguely. They do not need to know of the exact investigative methods he is going to employ.

"Rae," he says softly. "I want you to go to Sacramento."

"Yeah, I figured."

"That is a small enough area, correct? You will be able to find another Shinigami relatively quickly?"

"Probably. I can also fabricate some feasible evidence once I find our faux-Kira, too. So that you can explain your sudden raid on a seemingly-random location."

So it knows he is going to tell the others. Very astute.

"Thank you," L replies gratefully.

"I'll be gone at least a few days. It'll take me an hour or so of travelling just to get there. You won't be able to contact me."

"Yes, I know," L murmurs. "Will you be all right?"

Rae tilts its head.

"Me? I can't be hurt."

"You are impaired. What happens if your eyes stay brown for too long? You will not lose your capacity to be king?"

"No," Rae insists. "I'll be fine."

"If you say so."

"Don't do anything stupid until you hear from me," Rae adds. "And that's an order."

L taps his fingers against his forehead in a mock salute and smiles.

There is something very gratifying about the way it values his health.

* * *

"I fail to see how this will help," she says icily, and takes a dignified sip of her green tea. "I prefer my own methods to yours."

He laughs.

"If that were true, princess, you wouldn't have immediately gotten on a plane as soon as I told you to," he points out. "Besides, your methods are _boring_."

"So preoccupied with being entertained," she sneers. "Are all Shinigami such _children_?"

"Hey, that's not fair," Ryuk protests. "I'm practically an elder."

"You are practically an idiot."

"Is that any way to treat the guy who's going to deliver L right into your hands?"

She sighs and deposits her paper cup delicately into the nearby bin.

"_If_ you do that, then you will have my respect," she says faintly. "Right now, you are just a tool. An unhelpful tool, at that. You have the capability to deliver Light to me right now. Even Big Jason is just a mortal. You would have no trouble overpowering him."

"Sorry, toots. That's not the way we work," he replies, as contritely as he can manage.

"Of course not," she replies crisply. "Very well. I am in London, and L thinks I am still in Sacramento. Explain to me how this is useful."

Right to the chase. Ryuk sighs. Doesn't anyone have time for banter any more? Or making apple pie?

Never mind. The sooner he can get through this, the sooner he can get back to his friend. Then they will have so much fun. Possibly she will help him play a prank on the queen. That would be splendid.

"Now you're going to get L to deliver himself right to you," he announces grandly.

She folds her arms.

"How will I do that?"

Ryuk grins, and fishes a small object out of the pocket of his fetid robe.

"All you need are a few helpers and _this_."

She rolls her pretty eyes disdainfully.

"That is a mobile phone. How will it be useful to me?"

"You won't be able to make calls or send messages from this, but you can still read the history," he explains. "The last dialled number is L's. I know that for sure. I know the person who had it last."

She folds her arms.

"And what does it cost me to take it from you?" she asks suspiciously. "I have already sacrificed half of my remaining life for these eyes."

"Yeah, so it'll be easy. Send him a message to meet up with you. You'll get to see his face, read his name, and presto! Oh, the phone doesn't cost anything. Consider it a gift."

She takes the phone gingerly, as if it might be burning hot.

"Even if what you say is true," she huffs. "L will not venture out to meet someone he does not know, and even if he does, he will be heavily guarded and probably masked."

"Not if he thinks he's meeting a friend," Ryuk points out cheerfully. "All you need to do is sign off under the right name."

"I see. And what name would that be?"

Ryuk grins to himself. This game is about to get interesting.

He might even have some fun, before the week is out.

* * *

There is little that L can do until faux-Kira is located, so he spends his time eating friands, training, and squatting companionably in the same room as Mail.

Raye refuses to have anything to do with him, and he has no idea why. And he has caught Naomi watching him with a sad, confused little expression that doesn't suit her.

Clearly, they are not taking news of faux-Kira well.

Of course, he also spends a reasonable amount of time sitting in his office, pretending to research the case, so that when he suddenly locates their suspect, it will not seem so odd.

And when he is not in the presence of the others, he notices the silence. It is always the same, every time Rae leaves. He has become too accustomed to company. L worries that he is a little too satisfied with the more comfortable things in life. There was a time when all he needed was a secure room, a lamp, and a well-connected computer.

Now he needs so much more than that. The beginning of the end. He used to be so strong.

Or at least, he pretended to be so strong. Light still knocked him flat like so many bowling pins, didn't he?

Maybe L is just smarter now, compensating for his weaknesses instead of pretending they don't exist. Yes, he would like to think that.

"L."

"Mm?"

Mail is sprawled in his chair, his long, skinny legs kicked out under the expensive desk. He doesn't smell particularly disgusting, so L presumes that Naomi has recently forced him into the shower. His fringe is eternally flopping into his eyes, and L is still occasionally surprised by the absence of his once-beloved goggles.

He does not really understand why Mail discarded so much of who he was prior to death, when he is also desperate to cling to Mello's memory. It's almost as if he's attempting to sabotage himself.

Maybe Mail actually _doesn't_ want to remember. Regardless of whether he does, L knows he would be happier if all his memories of Mello were erased.

_Is there a way to do that, I wonder_?

And would he do it? Would he betray his own pseudo-son like that?

_I'd wager you'd do anything for him. Even if it was only going to make him the slightest bit happier. _

Rae really ought to hold its cursed tongue.

"This case is getting ridiculous," Mail sighs. "The fuckin' bastard keeps abandoning his scam websites and making new ones every three days. It's impossible to hack him in time."

"I need you to keep trying," L urges. "His victims total over two thousand, now."

Mail kicks at the air.

"What if I'm sick of it? What if I want to work on the new serial killer case with the rest of you?"

L smiles a little.

"You? Wanting to do something that involves other people?"

Maybe he is even a little better. Just a little. Almost imperceptibly so.

And _damn_ Rae for even suggesting that L ought to have sexual relations with his protégé. Now every conversation between them has become distinctly awkward. Mostly because L feels obliged to analyse and amend every comment he makes that might sound even vaguely suggestive. Just in case Mail is thinking the same thing.

"By 'something', I meant work. By the way."

"I want to do something _easier_. This sucks," Mail groans. L shouldn't worry, really.

"Come on," he says fondly. "It isn't like you to give up so quickly."

The younger man rounds on him, eyes glinting.

"I don't give a _shit_ about being challenged," he declares. "I'm not_ him_."

"Oh no?" L ventures, completely uncertain as to whether he is about to make things better or worse. "Why do you insist upon living in his shadow, then? You almost seem to crave it."

"Shut the fuck up! How dare you talk about the two of us as if we're even _comparable_. He was _leagues _better than me. And you insult him by suggesting otherwise."

"There is not such a great difference between two and three," L points out, and then ducks as Mail aims a punch at his head.

"There is! And of _course_ I crave his shadow," Mail wails, grabbing him by the top of his shirt. "I crave _everything_. Anything that is his."

So much sadness. L cannot imagine ever feeling something so deeply. He cannot imagine grieving for five years.

He still misses Matsuda quite distinctly, but it isn't the same thing.

"He would not want to see you like this," L enunciates. "He would want you to be happy."

Mail laughs, an ugly, unhappy little bark.

"He never gave a _shit_ whether I was happy or not," he sneers. "If you knew anything about him, you'd know that. And you can cut the sanctimonious bullshit. You sound like you've been reading too many self-help books."

"You are right. I do not know enough of his character," L concedes. "However, I know of his _values_. And he would want you to keep yourself in peak condition, so that you could solve cases as rapidly and fairly as possible. And yet you have disregarded that."

Mail releases him, and L is a little grateful.

"That's what he would want of _everyone_," he cries. "Not just me. I'm not…I wasn't…he wouldn't want anything in particular of me. I am no-one to him."

"Ah," L says knowingly. "I see. So this is a selfish venture. You will not be what Mello would have wanted you to be, because he did not feel for you _specially_?"

As far as he knows, they were mutually friends. And on several occasions, Mello had gone to significant lengths to ensure Mail's safety. There is a high likelihood that he must have cared for Mail, at least a little. But L can only hold down so many different arguments at once.

"That's not what I'm saying," Mail yells, despairingly. "I don't want to be special to him. I just want to be _with _him."

L touches his fringe, pushing it out of his eyes just a little. Mail jerks away hurriedly.

"Mail Jeevas. I believe you have tried every possible avenue of grief by now," he says kindly. "Perhaps it is time to simply work around your emotions."

"Don't you tell me how to feel!"

"It is a suggestion, nothing more," L reasons. "Keep him as your priority. But take on his goals as you took on his clothes, his religion, and his name. Do what he cannot do right now."

"I already _am_. Why do you think I'm _here_?"

"Because you had nowhere else to go. You cannot tell me you are trying your hardest for the cases. Indeed, you are scarcely trying at _all._"

Mail snorts, bitterly.

"So what? You want me to eat, and exercise, and become _normal _because that's what _he_ would have done?"

"Your entire life is a memorial of his," L points out. "I do not see why this is a problem for you."

Mail shakes his head, and L's phone vibrates neatly in his pocket. L retrieves it. A message.

'_L, I need to speak with you urgently. Something has happened. Staton Park in forty-five minutes. Rem. '_

"What is it?" Mail asks, obviously relishing the change in subject.

L stares at his phone, as relieved as he is perplexed. She's safe, and nearby, and _contacting him_, and he had not realised how distinctly he has felt her absence up until now. And her timing is superb. He would rather meet her without any antagonistic Shinigami tagging along.

He cannot deny that Rae is less of a problem now than it was six months ago. There is no question as to its motives – clearly it still wants to pervert his morals for its own means – but right now it is helpful and supportive and singularly useful.

And…it is with him. All of the time.

"My informant," he replies vaguely.

He wonders what has happened to her. What had she said? _I'm going to do something else for you first_. He wonders what she could have done that possibly could have taken so very long.

He doesn't dare presume that she has had contact with Mello.

And why is she calling from a different number? Why does she want to meet him in a different place? Staton Park is also within walking distance, but it is in the opposite direction from Roxbury, where they first met.

She tried to do a favour for him, and now something has gone wrong. Is she being followed? Have other Shinigami gotten angry with her?

Not that any of these things will affect the nature of his reply. No-one knows of his previous liaisons with Rem save for the two of them and Rae. And there would be no benefit for Rae to fool him like this. Therefore, the message must therefore be genuinely from Rem. And she would not lead him into a trap, or into danger. She loves him, after all, and he knows how extensively loyal she can be.

Perhaps she needs his help. Perhaps she simply wants to ensure his safety. Either way, he will go.

He taps out his response quickly and delicately.

'_I'll be there.'_

He _must_ go.

"For the murder case?" Mail asks, a little shakily.

"Yes. Will you continue to focus on the scammer for the time being?" L asks. "I do not quite know how long this will take, but I should be back before nightfall."

"Whatever," Mail replies.

* * *

Things only get more uncomfortable when L leaves, and there is nothing to distract her from the silent, bitter figure in the chair across the room. Naomi has half-heartedly attempted to make her peace with him, but it is clear that Raye wants nothing less than grovelling.

She is not prepared to beg, unless he does the same. It takes two people to have a disagreement, after all.

And he is not the focus of her concerns. Rather, she is concentrating on abetting the mounting panic that has threatened to overtake her ever since L told them about the new case.

Another one, another one, goddamned it, another one.

Of the entire team, she has always been the one who was least affected by the Kira case. She had not emerged from it frightened, or broken, or haunted, or grief-stricken. Occasionally she has nightmares about being in that horrible, passive, empty-headed state. About the other creature in her mind, controlling her, urging her closer and closer to that edge. About the way her detached, unresponsive hands knotted the cord even as she screamed at her body to _listen_. And the way her feet, still clad in her favourite boots, deftly kicked away the stool as she cowered helplessly in one corner of her own being.

But a nightmare is just a nightmare. A bad memory, a bad dream. Nothing to be afraid of. Not now. Not in this place.

Naomi Penber has always been perfectly in control of herself. She never gets sick, she never becomes weak, she eats well and trains hard and her body does exactly what she asks of it, all the time.

She can predict her own capabilities – the reach of her fist, the strength of her kick, the extent of her sight, the fragility of her bones – as accurately as L can predict the rest of the world.

And so there is no good explanation as to why her body has suddenly started failing her once more. There is no screaming ungodly presence, no absolute rebellion, but there is a lurch to her stomach, a fuzziness to the world around her, a limit to her stamina, an unpredictability to her mood. Things that were never there before. A slow overtaking of her mind and abilities.

Something is wrong with her, and she does not know what it is.

And now, there is a new Kira.

The nightmare is back.

* * *

"Wow," Ryuk says dumbly. "You look, er, pretty."

He has always been a little more uncomfortable around human women. It's not something he's ever bothered to try to explain, not even to himself. They're softer and prettier than their male counterparts, and sometimes they confuse him, just a little.

She clicks her tongue at him and goes back to powdering her face in the mirror.

"I am meeting an important man today," she says, with an ugly little smirk. "I ought to look my best, don't you think?"

He taps his chin.

"I don't understand at all. You're killing a human who is universally accepted as being _good_. Surely that's not what you ought to be doing, as goddess of the new world."

"A necessary sacrifice. A goddess is nothing without her god. Once this ridiculous little game is finished, and I have Light back, we will be straight back into our old routine. Bad people will be punished, and good people will live in safety and comfort. And when that day comes…I will kill Big Jason. I want to hear him beg for mercy."

Humans don't make any sense at all. But in a kind of hilarious way, so he doesn't mind. Besides, death gods don't make much sense, either.

He doesn't have the heart to point out to her that no death note in the world could possibly kill Big Jason.

The _white_ note, on the other hand, might just be capable of such a task. He has to find out. Plenty of time for that later. Plenty.

"Where did you find all of the extra people so quickly?" he asks, changing the subject to something that is hopefully more interesting.

"What, did you think Kira had no supporters left?" she scoffs. "This world might be overflowing with the lawless and the heathens that he purged from the last, but it also contains a large number of law-abiding, moral citizens. Some of them even died for his cause. He will be so impressed to find us all again."

"Right. Great. And your plan from here is to…?"

"Acquire everyone who sets foot in that park within the next two hours," she replies derisively, as if she can barely tolerate speaking to him. "It is relatively abandoned, the chore should not be too difficult for my assistants to handle."

"So how are you going to find the real one?"

"It will not matter. I will execute them all with the death note. Doubtlessly, he will be amongst them."

"Right. And then you'll get Light back?"

"Of course."

He sort of feels sorry for her. He is almost tempted to tell her the truth. Except then the queen would eat his theoretical liver.

Plus, he's kind of enjoying this. And he has something much more _interesting_ to do with his time right now.

He stretches his wings and flies straight out of the room, without another word.

He hopes he gets back in time to see the show.

* * *

L doesn't take much with him. A single gun down the back of his jeans, a phone up his sleeve, and a hooded shirt. As an afterthought, he dons an intricate mask that Wedy made for him years ago. It covers the bottom part of his face, ages him considerably and renders him almost completely unrecognisable.

Just in case.

He leaves quickly. According to his calculations, Rae ought to return either today or tomorrow.

The last thing he needs is to referee another Shinigami catfight.

* * *

He passes the man himself on his way to L's headquarters. Ryuk waves automatically, even though he knows L cannot see him. He's looking forward to the final conflict of today. He knows L is clever. And L has people around him who love him and will fight for him.

The thing Ryuk is interested in is this; just how many people does L have in such a position?

Humans are fascinating.

So are gods of death.

He reaches the building and flitters through the rooms. He notes the completeness of the surveillance system, and the taps on the walls and floor. He briefly regards the other humans, the depressed young man in a room full of acrid smoke, the frightened woman pretending to be confident, the angry man who is obviously working way beyond his actual capacity.

None of them interest him. He is very specific in his choices for entertainment. Besides, there's only one thing in this place capable of seeing him right now. His favourite colleague in all of the worlds.

Who isn't actually here yet, but will be in a few minutes. Ironic, really, the way they just managed to miss each other.

Ryuk plonks himself down in the middle of L's room and waits. A moment later he gets up, raids the fruit bowl, and goes back to waiting. A few seconds after that, he spits out a mouthful of polystyrene and mutters balefully about L's choice of artwork.

Stupid fake apples.

"Ryuk? What the hell are you doing here?"

Ryuk beams and stands up.

"Hi, kiddo! How have you been?"

Rae glowers at him.

"That was _not_ an answer to my quest….where is L?"

"Why are those the first words out of your mouth?" Ryuk sulks.

_Fine. Is no one going to do anything amusing around here?_

"Because he's missing, and here you are," Rae snaps. "What the fuck is going on?"

Clever, that one.

"Well, I've got some good news, and some bad news."

Rae punches him. It happens so quickly that Ryuk doesn't have time to duck or block or react. He's already laughing by the time he connects with the wall.

"Say, you're doing well. You're learning from L and his team, huh? But I guess you haven't convinced him to use the death note yet."

"He will, and _tell me the goddamned news before I hit you again_."

"Geeze, okay. Well, the good news is…um. And the bad news. Err."

Ryuk sticks one spindly finger in his mouth and regards the ceiling. He hadn't actually planned this conversation much past that particular line.

"Wait, is L being murdered by a Kira supporter with a death note good news or bad news?"

Rae screams at him in response.

Heh.

* * *

The park is mostly deserted, the mid-afternoon rain soaking the grass, the benches, and his clothes. There is mud between his toes. The area is almost excessively secluded, bordered on three sides by lines of thick trees.

He crouches on the ground, with his back to a tree-trunk, and waits. The soft background noise of precipitation handicaps his hearing, and he swivels his head back and forth to make up for his huge blind spot.

He hates feeling so useless. He hates the way he needs Rae, or one of the others by his side in order to function normally.

Rem will protect him, when she comes. He trusts her. She will keep him safe.

There was a time when he could rely upon himself so utterly that even Watari's duties were mostly peripheral. Sometimes he wants nothing more than to relive those days, over and over, the best he ever was.

There are people around the park, beyond the veil of foliage. He can hear faint voices, and he can smell the distinct tang of petrol from recently-parked vehicles. They were here before he arrived. He is not being followed.

He hopes Rem has information on the faux-Kira case. That would be infinitely helpful. The investigation will be nothing but stressful for everyone involved, and the sooner it is resolved, the better.

He wishes he didn't see remnants of Light in so many of his cases. He wishes he could forget, surrender the memories of that man as completely and easily as handing back a death note. Because, oh yes, he knows about that little loophole. He knows exactly how Light pulled it all off. So clever. How could he possibly have competed?

If Light ever returns, L will be able to take him on knowing all of his secrets. Theoretically, L ought to win.

'Theoretically' is not a very comforting word.

But oh, if that day must come, L would have it come right now. He would have this faux-Kira be the real Light, psychotic and laughing, all the last shreds of pretend morality evaporated. He would have that fight now, today, or at least within the next ten months.

While he still has Rae.

Because L is sure, he is absolutely certain, that the two of them could vanquish Light for good. Rae's staunch agreement with the original Kira's goals is purely idealistic, and if Rae saw the real Light - lying and scrabbling and manipulative and pathetic - L knows it would take his side in a heartbeat.

And Light Yagami would be _begging_ to be let back into hell.

And that is such beautiful, satisfying mental imagery that L neither hears nor reacts to the footsteps near him in a timely manner. His hands are seized and dragged backwards, pinned to either side of the tree that was supposed to hide him. A tiny, shocked noise escapes him. There are two men standing over him, faces hidden inside gas masks.

"What are you doing out here, old man?"

He kicks out, but they're too nimble, and they've got him at the perfect angle. They planned it, they planned it, and yet they cannot possibly know who he is. Only Rem knows he supposed to be here. This is an ordinary mugging.

How did this escape his notice? How stupid has he become?

One of the men presses a rag over his mouth and nose, and the perforated latex mask does little to protect him from the emanating fumes.

_Fuck_, he thinks, and the world goes black.

* * *

"I don't really get why you _care_, kiddo. Surely if he dies, another human will be much easier to convince. And you've still got the better part of a year."

Rae is ignoring him. It is standing in the centre of the room, with both hands on the back of its neck, panicking.

"Fucking hell I can't believe you let someone pretend to be Rem. He's…how much time do we have? At his walking speed, he'll-"

"He'll be there by now, they'll already have him unconscious," Ryuk points out gently. Shinigami can't _actually_ suffer from high blood pressure. He's pretty sure. They don't have any blood to start with.

"When I am king, I will have you thrown in the fucking _dungeons!_"

"Oh yeah, about that," Ryuk begins, and then remembers he isn't allowed to say anything about that. "Never mind."

"I'm going after him!" Rae decides. "And…and don't you _dare_ interfere with any of my humans ever again!"

"Uh, how is that going to help? You can't…touch anyone or move anything in front of other humans. If L can't see you then you can't talk to anyone. Rules are rules, you know."

"And it's not against the _rules_ to enable a human to pose as a Shinigami?"

"Not as far as I know."

Rae is pacing the room so fast that it's painful to watch.

"He doesn't know that Rem is dead! I didn't tell him. He's…you've…you…_fuck _you, what do I do?"

Ryuk tilts his head. This is also…interesting. And not entirely what he expected. Maybe.

_How much damage is too much damage_?

"I dunno? Nothing? I mean, the lady who owns my note doesn't have the funds for cameras right now, but I will only take ten minutes for the car to arrive at her place, and then she'll see his face, and you'll have to get a new human to play with."

Something glints in Rae's eyes, and Ryuk suddenly realises he's missed something. The eyes have changed. Geeze.

But that's a different conversation for a different day.

"Nothing I can do, huh?" the younger Shinigami says darkly, examining its death note. "We'll see about that. _Damn_ you, Ryuk."

* * *

Raye Penber is no damn genius, that's for sure. He is an ordinary man, with very basic desires and goals. He wants to make the world a better place, and he wants to be rewarded for his efforts, and right now he'd really like L to just disappear out of his life. And more importantly, out of Naomi's.

The bastard just…he doesn't even _realise_ what he's doing, and that's the worst part of it. He unwittingly consumes people. He steals wives from loyal and deserving men without even _meaning_ to, through some indescribable magnetism that Raye detests but does not understand.

And…and Naomi _loves_ L. More than she loves her own husband.

Well, fine. This isn't over. L isn't the all-powerful enigma that he used to be, and Raye will prove to his wife that _he_ is more worthy of her time than an emotional cripple with one eye and no social skills.

Intellect only goes so far. Only Raye can offer Naomi a _future_.

And if she won't accept that, then.

Then…she'd damn well _better_! After everything he's done! After living in this godforsaken place day after day. After blindly following _L_ through fire and slings and arrows. After he's waited _so long_ for them to be a proper family and have a proper life.

After _everything_.

He hates L. And Naomi is exhausting him. And…oh, here's his _other_ favourite person. Bloody perfect.

"Hey," Mail says, a failed attempt at a courteous greeting. "I'm bored again. I'll work on this case with you for a while."

"You will not," Naomi says sharply, because she _has_ to comply with _L's_ orders, of course.

"You can't tell me what to do."

"I can in L's absence," Naomi retorts. "I'm second in charge."

_Maybe it's the power_, Raye realises. _Maybe it's got nothing to do with L, really._

Or maybe that's how he gets people. They are drawn to his infamy and strength.

"I don't have to listen to _him_, either."

Mail hasn't fallen for L, so obviously his power isn't limitless. Then again, Mail is so fucked up that he quite possibly has ash coursing through his veins instead of blood, so that is little comfort.

"But you do," Naomi reasons. "You listen, and you work for him, and you stay here, and you continue to live."

"Shut the fuck up!"

"You _care_ about the things he says," she finishes defiantly, and Mail flinches and scowls at her.

"How the hell is that attitude helping anything?" Raye snarls. "Are you _trying_ to push him into leaving? Your precious L would be devastated."

"Don't talk about him like that!"

"Don't talk about him like that!"

They both speak at the same time, united in their indignation, and then Mail glares at Naomi, and Naomi glowers at Raye and silence reigns supreme.

Raye tries to disregard the fact that if Mail left, Naomi would be the only member of the team for whom L held non-professional feelings. She would be the focus of his social attention.

Not that the man has been seeking very much social attention lately. Wasn't that part of the reason Naomi was so suspicious of him in the first place?

And what _is_ her problem, anyway? L aside, she has been picking fights and making less-than-brilliant decisions all over the place. Her stamina has been sapped, and if he didn't know better, he'd say she had taken ill.

But his beautiful wife never gets sick. Which means something _else_ is wrong. Ane he is terrified, absolutely _terrified_, that that something is her heart.

The three of them are standing in an angry little triangle in the middle of the room, barely an arm's length between any of them. So when someone presses something hard and flat against his shoulder, he presumes that it must be Watari.

Said object turns out to be a black, bound notebook, and Watari then reaches fucking _over_ his head to tap Naomi and Mail with it in turn.

Wait a minute. Watari isn't tall enough to reach over his head. And that arm isn't…what…what the _hell_?

Is this some sort of practical _joke_?

"Oh my _god_," Naomi breathes, one hand clamped over her mouth, her skin rapidly turning from pale to white to a faint, waxy green. She looks as if she might pass out, and Raye is about to assure her that Watari is just dicking around, for some absurd reason, when Mail takes a shotgun out of his coat and fires several rounds into the wall behind Raye.

"Yeah," says a new voice. It is unfamiliar and therefore _definitely _doesn't belong in their headquarters. "That isn't going to work."

"Jesus fuck, it's _talking_," Mail hisses. "You. Man. Turn around, there's this…there's…there's…"

Raye is distinctly certain that he does not _want_ to turn around, because there's a chance that the two of them aren't actually hallucinating.

Naomi grabs him and practically reefs him to her side, ridiculously strong for her fragile state.

"It's a monster," she whispers into her hand.

Raye can see it from here, and he would really like to wake up from this nightmare right about _now_, because it's a ten-foot flaming skeleton with wings like knife-blades and it is going to kill them all and this cannot possibly be real.

"It's a Shinigami," Mail corrects shakily. "Fucking fucking fuck."

"I don't believe it," Naomi says softly, and he loves her with all his heart, really he does. "We're all going to die."

"Oh, shut up, all of you," the _thing_ snaps. "You don't have time for this. You have eight minutes to intercept a car carrying L before he is delivered to the new Kira and murdered."

The colour returns to Naomi's skin impossibly fast, and she cocks her head.

"You…you're working for _L_?" she demands, and there is an air of _told-you-so_ in her voice that baffles him. There's a fucking _skeleton in the room_. Who _cares_ about L?

Wait. He's going to be killed?

"He can explain everything later," it says, with an irritated haughtiness that Raye can almost relate to. "Right now you need to _go_. I can show you where the vehicle is headed."

"I'm going to kill you," Mail declares, his eyes wide and vacant. "I'm going to kill all the Shinigami. It's _your_ fault."

The skeleton stares at him. It has brown eyes, which is kind of disturbing. Bare skulls shouldn't still contain _eyes_.

"You do that, crazy," it says nonchalantly.

Naomi's sucks in a little breath, and then smiles wryly.

"You've been here for a while, haven't you?" she says knowingly. "I _knew_ something was wrong. When we find him, I am going to fucking kill him."

And, immediately taking charge, she grabs his hand and Mail's arm and drags them towards the door, already dialling Watari. The giant death-god-monster-thing flaps after them.

All he ever wanted was a damn normal life.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ next bit might be another two weeks, maybe even more. I have to do some serious plotting before I'm ready to post it. my apologies for this. I am a woefully disorganised sort of writer.

+ for anyone who is wondering, I aten't drowned.

+ thank you, thank you, thank you.


	27. Restoration

notes/warnings:

+ swearing. to be honest, I don't think I could write even one paragraph of this fic without someone uttering the f-word.

+ probable crap writing. but hey, if you've gotten to chapter twenty-seven, you've probably become immune to my overuse of the word 'snaps' and my inability to remember anyone's gender or what happened three sentences ago.

* * *

**Restoration**

There are not enough words in the world to explain how angry he is right now, although a tiny, omnipresent part of him points out that _Mel_ probably could have thought of some.

The man and lady don't look at the skeleton, like they're trying to pretend it doesn't exist. And he's no expert on normal human emotion and behaviour, but as far as he can gather, what they're doing doesn't make any sense at all.

They need to _deal _with this, damnit. Hiding is the last thing anyone should be doing.

"So. Kira's back," he says unnecessarily.

"A new Kira," the lady replies tersely, glancing at him briefly before she turns her attention back to the road. Her fingers grip the steering wheel tightly, and she makes every turn as if her life depends on it.

"Am I missing something?" Mail demands. "Kiras kill with death notes. There is a fuckin' _Shinigami_ in the back of the car –"

"Hello to you, too."

"Shut up. Don't you think that just _maybe_ this is _Kira's _Shinigami, and it has been sent to herd us all into the same place so we can be lined up and slaughtered like cattle?"

"You know, I don't think I've ever actually agreed with you on anything before," the man says bitterly. "This must be a historic occasion. Naomi, what we're doing is suicide."

"Why would I bother to reveal myself to you at all, then?" the thing asks. "Surely you realise that there are far easier, more believable ways to kill a group of people. Especially for someone wielding a note."

"Not if you don't know the names of any of the people in that group," Mail snarls at it. "Like us."

"_I_ can see your name, Jeevas," the thing deadpans. "If I wanted to help faux-Kira, I'd kill you for her and be done with it. And all of this would be an absolute waste of time."

It has a strange voice, grating and hollow and not-quite-human. Mail wants to jump out of the car and turn on his heels and run and run and run. He never wanted to have to deal with this again. Wasn't it bad enough that they took his _boy_? Now they're taking his mentor as well?

When did L become in any way parallel to Mel?

"Faux-Kira?" Raye mutters. "You use the same terminology as we do?"

Mail shakes his head fiercely.

"Listen to me," the lady says steadily. "L has been concealing something for a long time. I believe…I believe this Shinigami is his."

He stares at her, jaw slack.

_No. Not possible. No!_

"So…what?" he says weakly, trying to pull his brain together. "There's another Shinigami out there, one that also belongs…L is… _L_ is…_no_!"

"Mail," she warns. "Don't. We can't go assuming anything yet."

She's pissed. She's as pissed as he is and then some. After all, she's always been L's number one fan. But there's a faux-Kira out there, apparently, and L has a death note, and has been _lying_ to them, and…

And then it hits him. Everyone _knows_ about Faux-Kira. The lady, the man, the skeleton. They all knew of his existence. Her existence. Whatever. And presumably, so did L.

They've all been fucking _hiding_ things from him.

Mail clenches his right hand into a fist, his lighter a reassuring weight in his pocket.

_Fuck you_, he thinks, and it is _L's_ betrayal that actually stings. _Fuck you, too_.

* * *

Ralph Whittaker doesn't actually have any opinion on the world's most famous serial killer, but his mate Dave told him about this chick who is paying good money to people for a bit of easy grunt work, provided they say they love Kira.

And right now, he needs some good money. He's got no savings, no job, and twins on the way. The bastards are going to re-mortgage his house if he doesn't pay up in the next two weeks. He'll say he loves just about anyone, for a little dough.

He wants his kids to grow up right. Get an education. And he's prepared to drug and kidnap a few park-going weirdos to meet that end, so that they never have to.

The motor purrs underneath him. The one-eyed old man sleeps soundly, immobile in his chains, head lolling against Dave's arm. Poor guy. Kira-obsessed lady is gonna line him up with all the others and shoot him, or something. Personally, he thinks she's a little bit crazy.

But who is he to complain?

"Hey Dave," he calls. "We're at the roundabout. Where do we go from here?"

Only one team member is allowed to know the point of delivery. In fact, every tiny detail of this whole shebang is being kept pretty quiet. He doesn't know anyone from the other teams, but he presumes they're all like him. Hired thugs. What he does know is that the roads are presently littered with the vehicles of these other teams, each carrying some unlucky person back to Kira-lover to meet their death.

Really, it's enough to make him want to change his mind. Dave huffs at him.

"One right," he mutters. "Three left. Five left. Two right. Ten right. Two left. And that is the last time I'm telling you. I'm not supposed to say it more than once."

"I don't understand why you can't just _tell_ me where we're going, and not just speak in gobbledegook code all the time," he mutters.

"Because it's _important_, that's why. People might be listening!"

"We know the car isn't bugged or anything. Who's going to be listening? You, me, and snoring guy. That's all."

"People outside the car, then," Dave grits. "People we're passing, right now. Think about it. If anyone follows us, they'll find out where _she_ is."

"Before, or after we get our money?"

"Dude, this bitch _kills people who upset her_. And we don't even know _how_. Besides, she's hot. And painfully single."

Ralph rolls his eyes.

"You should try thinking with other parts of your anatomy, occasionally," he comments.

Fifth left. Huh. This is the industrial part of town. Ralph wonders if Kira-lady's base is an abandoned warehouse. He focuses deftly on the road. Dave is right, they can't fuck up. He needs to take the second right.

Funny, how much that old guy is sleeping. _Her_ orders were to re-apply the chloroform every thirty seconds, but he's definitely down for the count. No need, really.

"Whatever," Dave says smugly. "My hormones have saved your ass before."

"It was your _hormones_ that got my ass killed, too," Ralph reminds him. He turns again, and starts counting towards the tenth right turn. They pass an abandoned warehouse, a discount outlet, another park, a block of -

_Screeech_.

"Holybitchmotherfuck!" Dave screams.

Out of nowhere, a sleek black Sedan pulls out in front of them, side-on, blocking the narrow street entirely. Ralph slams the brake pedal to the floor, and they stop just short of a collision.

He pants, trying to catch his breath. This is wrong. No-one should be trying to stop them. No-one should _know_.

"Hey!" he yells. "Get out of the way!"

The Sedan doesn't move. Instead, one of the rear windows opens slightly, and the muzzle of a pistol appears.

"Get out of the car!" Dave says, panicked.

"Get _out_? They've got a fucking gun out there!"

The unknown assailant fires four times, and Ralph feels the car lurch as the tyres give out. A fifth shot shatters the windscreen.

"_Fuck!"_

Ralph does move, then. He fumbles frantically with his seatbelt and Dave shoves the door open. And then something sharp and stinging connects with his neck, and Dave collapses against the car, and then there is nothing.

Nothing.

* * *

"Right, so _I'm_ not allowed to shoot at cars with people still inside, but _you_ totally are," Mail sneers, shoving his bangs out of his face.

"I knew what I was doing," Naomi reasons distractedly, hurrying over to the other car. "I knew I wouldn't hit anyone."

She moves quickly because she has to. The blow-darts are not particularly potent, and she _needs _to know that L is unharmed. The Shinigami told her he would be in the back of the car, drugged and bound. She neatly handcuffs the thug lying on the ground, and pushes him towards Mail. They'll take both of them in for questioning, of course, but that's not her primary concern right now.

"Oh. He's here," Raye mutters, peering into the car.

"Oh, thank god," Naomi says, a little off-balance. She practically shoves her husband out of the way to reveal one sleepy-but-quite conscious L, effectively immobilised by chains, and bound to the middle of the back seat.

Unharmed. Wonderfully unharmed. She is going to kick his fucking ass. All she wants is for him to prove, somehow, right fucking _now_, that he isn't the fake Kira and he has nothing to _do_ with Kira. And neither his word – nor the word of his _pet_ – are going to convince her. She needs evidence. Real evidence.

Mail picks the lock in a matter of seconds, his glare murderous. L regards them both dimly.

"Hallo," he says quietly. "I cannot really think adequately right now, but I believe know how to work out where they were going. I feigned sleep when the chloroform wore off, and there were instructions. My memory is a little hazy, but…why did you come looking for me, anyway?"

He regards each of them intently, and, apparently finding no answers amongst the glowers, turns back to Naomi.

"N?"

"Hallo, L," she says sweetly. "Who is this?"

She points at the razor-blade skeleton with a cold smile.

L's eyes flicker from the tip of her index finger, to the god of death, and back again.

"I don't understand –"

"You can't see it, L?" she demands. "You can't see the Shinigami?"

L freezes, completely unresponsive for a number of seconds. Then he sags, his expression miserable and deadened.

"You told them?" he asks dejectedly.

It isn't the tone of a man who kills people, Naomi assures herself. He's too calm. Clearly he's done nothing wrong.

Why is he keeping secrets in the first place, if he's done nothing wrong?

"You did something stupid," the thing hisses. "Another two minutes and faux-Kira would have had your name and face. What was I _supposed_ to do?"

Delicately, he pulls himself free from the remains of the car and hunches in front of them, looking exhausted and miserable. Naomi fervently wishes she could erase the last fifteen minutes of her life.

She never wanted to know this.

"N," he breathes. "R. M. This is Rae. It works with me."

The giant skeleton inclines its head ever so slightly.

"Nice to meet you."

Naomi isn't certain whether it's the circumstances, or her own illness, or some irrational jealousy that someone _else_ is working closely with her hero, but she is suddenly and absolutely sure of one thing.

She hates this Shinigami with every fibre of her being.

* * *

"So, what do we do?" Raye whispers, apparently under the misconception that L cannot hear him. "Do we lock him up?"

"He's still our _boss_," Naomi replies. She sounds shocked by his words, but L knows that _she _will not have underestimated his hearing, so anything she says will have been modified for his benefit.

"But there's a killer on the loose, and now he's…look, even if he's not killing all of them-"

"He's _L_," she says with a finality that brings a faint smile to L's lips. Naomi is loyal to him. His only genuine supporter.

Or perhaps not.

"You brought this on yourself," Rae growls, apparently sensing his eyes on the back of its skull. "Don't blame me. My only other option was to let you die."

"How did you know where I would be?" he enquires, fascinated.

"Why wouldn't it know?" Raye demands loudly. "Actually, why wasn't it _with_ you?"

"It was running surveillance for me in Sacramento," L explains. "Rae?"

"And why the hell does it have the same fucking name as me?"

"Ryuk," Rae pronounces. "Another Shinigami came by and bragged to me about what his mistress had done. By that point, you were already unconscious and bound, and there was very little I could do."

L touches his chin.

"You said that it was faux-Kira who captured me. We can presume he is the… mistress of the Shinigami? A woman?"

"According to Ryuk, yes. The new Kira is female. She knew the detective L would be in that park," Rae replies darkly. "She sent a message under Rem's name."

L jerks, a visceral response.

"How would she know about my accord with Rem?"

"Her Shinigami told her."

"Ryuk?"

"Yes."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on," Raye says angrily. "Who is Rem? How many of these things do you _have_, L?"

"Just Rae," L assures him. "Rem was simply a friend."

"But this…this Rae-thing," Naomi says quietly. "You own its death note?"

"You _befriended_ a Shinigami?"

L picks through his words carefully. He will answer his colleagues with as much honesty as he can, but he is not yet ready to reveal what he knows about the inner workings of hell. Some details must be glossed over.

His team is falling apart. Naomi and Mail may never trust him again. He knows how it looks, although there is no direct evidence to place him as faux-Kira, his circumstances are distinctly unfavourable. At best, they will all leave. At worst, they'll have him convicted as a murderer. He needs marshmallows. He's not going to get through this conversation without them.

And Rae _saved_ him.

"I was initially frightened of my own Shinigami," L explains. "I had encountered Rem during the original Kira case. She was very kind."

"Kind?" Raye spits. "L. Don't you understand that these things are _evil_? What they do…what they do to people. What they bring to humanity. What they _are_?"

"I'm right here, you know," Rae says coldly. "I can hear you."

"Then why don't you strike me down?" Raye roars, a challenge. "Come on, Shinigami. That's what you're so good at, isn't it?"

"No," Mail says, voice sickly and horrible. "No, kill me first. Kill me."

"That'd be counterproductive," Rae comments. "I can't send you back to your boyfriend, you know."

"Don't call him that!" Mail hisses, his face deathly white. "God, he'd never. He's better than that. Fuckin'...fuckin' _don't_!"

There was a time – L is _sure_ there was a time – when Rae wouldn't have given a damn about human relationships. It has changed so much since he first met it.

He cannot comprehend why. Watari used to occasionally tell him that he changed people, but he had always presumed the 'for the worst' had been heavily implied. Yet Rae is definitely _better _than before.

"Why would Rem allow someone to pose as her?" L queries. "You know she loves me. Why didn't she come to protect me?"

Rae stares at him evenly.

"I'll tell you later," it promises.

"Tell us now!" Raye bellows. "No more secrets!"

"Who says we cannot have _secrets_?" L asks, voice low and scrutinising. "We have not signed our lives over to each other."

"Apparently we _have_, since you know our names and faces!"

"Raye!"

"I have not killed anyone," L says firmly. "I have not, and I would not."

"Prove it," Naomi advises.

"Nobody trusts a liar," her husband adds.

There is absolutely, positively, no way at all that L can prove he received the death note years before faux-Kira came along.

"Ex_cuse_ me?" Mail asks Raye. "Nobody trusts a filthy fuckin' hypocrite, either. And _you_ were quite happy to hide the fact that we were _working another Kira case_!"

"Mail!" L says, reaching for him. Mail will leave him. Mail will snap and leave him, especially since he has no proof.

"Do you have the death note? Where do you keep it, L?" Mail asks nastily, rounding on him.

It is safely strapped under his shirt, but L knows that isn't really what his protégé wants to know. He is simply pointing out that it is there. The potential is there. The temptation is there. Always there.

He could not have set up a test of loyalty this accurate if he'd planned it. Raye suspects him of murder, Naomi doesn't want to suspect him, and Mail is….Mail.

And Rae saved him.

There is a soft, rhythmic knock at the door, and Watari enters politely with a platter of boiled sweets, L's only salvation.

Although he would have _preferred_ marshmallows.

"Thank you," he murmurs.

"Watari!" Raye says quickly. "Has L ever killed anyone, to your knowledge?"

Watari speaks neither for nor against him. He is simply a loyal employee. Raye will glean nothing from this interrogation.

"He has a death note," Mail points out, with a hateful little glare in L's direction.

"M…"

"Don't talk to me! You fuckin'…you _betrayed_ me!"

"Why? Because I do this? Because I keep a murderous notebook away from all other humans and safeguard it?"

"I don't know if I can believe that," Naomi says sadly. "Even I would be tempted to use it once or twice."

Watari regards each of them in turn. His eyes skip right over Rae, and his gaze lingers on L's for a long second, asking permission. L nods.

"That notebook came to L over four years ago," he says diplomatically.

A thick, awkward silence descends over the room, and L can practically _see_ the gears turning in his team-mates' heads.

"Can he see you?" he asks Rae quietly.

"Nope. I have immunity from anyone who touched the note before I showed up, to prevent others from interfering with my task."

"How's that going for you?" L asks ruefully.

"Will you stop _talking_ to it?" Raye demands, scrubbing at his temples.

"This Kira has only just started," Naomi says out loud. "If L has had his note for years…there would be no cause to start now. Would there?"

"I hate you," Mail adds, but the viciousness in his voice has eased a little.

"I…take it there is a Shinigami in the room, L?" Watari asks gently. Without a word, L unfastens the death note and passes it to him.

Watari takes it and regards Rae calmly.

"I see."

"Give it to N," L instructs.

"What?" Naomi says, astonished.

"_What_?" Rae sputters.

_Trust me_, L thinks.

"Listen, all of you," he tells them. "I have shaken your confidence, and I accept that. But there are things that need to be done. Each of you needs to decide whether you are prepared to continue working with me. N, it is up to you whether I ought to be convicted or not. While you hold the note, I cannot harm anyone. You can take as much time as you need to decide my fate. You have my word that I will go quietly."

"I don't," Naomi says, and then stops. She's holding the note with the very tips of her fingers, as if it might bite her at any second.

L hates the fact that he's using Light's strategy on his own team. If the killings continue, then he ought to be innocent. And they will. Because faux-Kira has no reason to stop.

"This is stupid," Rae grumbles.

"As for me, I will stay here and keep working on the new case," L continues, making his way over to the stairs. "Tell me when you reach a conclusion."

* * *

L closes his door, carefully leaving it unlocked, and then folds himself into his favourite chair. He exhales, long and slow. This is terrible. He needs to defeat faux-Kira. He cannot let himself be incapacitated, not yet.

But he is minimising damage, through his actions. If he is neither running nor protesting, then his capture will be quick, and it will not take long for Naomi to realise that there is another Kira she must locate and arrest.

Dear god, he hopes it doesn't come to that. He is not ready to give this job up. He is not ready to _leave them_. And it had honestly never occurred to him that he might meet his end in jail.

He wants a witch-hunt, at the very least. He wants drama and glory. He does not wish to be L, just another Kira. He does not wish to be a wannabe-_Light_.

He fires up his computer, and is stupidly relieved when he realises Rae has followed him into the room.

"Hallo," he says warmly. "Will you continue to help me with this case?"

The Shinigami grips the back of his chair and pulls violently, until L is staring at its upside-down face, on the verge of toppling if it releases him.

"What the _hell_ did you do that for?" it rasps. "That note belongs to _you_!"

"However, I can lease it to whomever I choose, correct?" L asks. "Those are the rules, I've been told."

"I don't _care_ about the rules! We had an accord!"

"Our accord was also that we would both protect the note from being uncovered by anyone else. You did not keep your end of the bargain, either."

"_Fuck_ you, you were going to _die_!"

"And that bothered you?"

"It ought to bother _you_! Miserable fucking detective you turned out to be!"

If it drops him now, he will be hurt, perhaps seriously. L uncurls himself awkwardly, reaches out with his legs, and attempts to hook one foot around the leg of the table.

In all honesty, he doesn't think it will let him go.

"So another Shinigami is interfering with the human world," he surmises, trying to get Rae to focus on the task at hand. "Does Ryuk have unusual motives, like yourself? Shinigami do not usually become involved to such an extent."

Its eyes are light brown, the colour of caramel, of Grace's toffee. Perhaps a shade closer to red than they've been in a while. If L can get it riled enough…

But it _is_ riled. It is absolutely, positively angry. It is practically radiating rage. L doesn't understand.

"Stop trying to change the damn subject! You told me you didn't trust anyone else with that notebook."

"I trust Naomi more than the others," L replies quietly.

"That's not good enough! She said _herself_ that she'd be tempted to use it! I thought you would be smart enough to realise that a notebook that powerful can't be given to just _anyone_."

"So, what?" L asks thoughtfully. "You concede I am at least somewhat ethical? I thought I was evil personified."

"You don't use it to kill _innocent_ people. Not using it at all is better than using it out of spite, or greed, or revenge!" Rae pontificates, gesturing dramatically with its free hand.

"So, hold on. I'm safe, and Light was _responsible_, but everyone else is dangerous?"

Being considered to be below _Light_ on the scale of morality is the worst sort of insult he can possibly imagine. Even coming from Rae. Especially coming from Rae, perhaps.

And then something else clicks.

"Not using it at all is better?" he asks softly. "What, does that mean you don't even care about being king, as long as the note isn't abused?"

Rae's mouth snaps shut, and it stares at him as if it has just been stung. L feels his chair being slowly pushed into the upright position, and it surprises him how much he trusts his giant skeleton monster.

_I've said it now_, he thinks, fascinated. Rae remains rooted to the spot, its head moving slowly from side to side, as if attempting to deny some fact to itself.

L is suddenly struck by the bizarre notion that maybe Rae has never actually investigated its own morals and motives before. That it has always presumed itself to think and act a certain way, and then never questioned that.

Which makes sense, if the Shinigami is protecting itself from some hidden emotion that locks its eyes and damages its powers. L would be wary of introspection, too, were he in such a delicate position.

And why? Illness? Disability? Love? What has changed in Rae so abruptly? Surely a Shinigami carrying such a drastic weakness would not be chosen as heir to the throne, so the condition must be new.

Unless the condition is part of the test.

Or unless Rae was never destined to be king.

"It's all right," L says gently. "Your motives are your own. You do not have to justify yourself to me."

"I want people to be safe," it tells him, with conviction.

"Humans, or Shinigami?"

"_Both_."

"Then," L says with a tiny smile, "the rest should be easy."

"_Really_, Miss Marple? And what if the others are not convinced of your innocence? What if Naomi never gives back the note?"

"Then you ought to do everything you can to bring faux-Kira to justice," L tells it. "Then you can be assured the note will come back to me. You want that quite badly, don't you?"

_Still convinced I am a free ticket, Shinigami? _

_Ah, but do you care? How much do you care? Because if you don't care about being king, then that must mean you genuinely care about me._

_No, that cannot be. You must want to be king._

Nothing makes sense, unless its earlier comment about everyone else being dangerous is considered to be a slip of the tongue, a poorly thought-out argument. Yes.

Ninety-eight percent certainty.

"Of course. I already told you, I want this to be as easy as possible. You are guaranteed to use the note."

"Responsibly?"

"I believe so," Rae says grudgingly. "What do you want me to do about the case? You said you thought you knew where they were taking you?"

"Yes. Did Ryuk tell you anything else about his current…human?"

"No, and I was a little too busy to follow him when he left," Rae sneers.

"I see. If you can find him again, can you persuade him to help us?"

"No."

"He will not even follow instructions from his own future monarch?"

Rae groans.

"It doesn't work like that, L. We don't tell each other how to handle humans. That's a personal decision."

"I see," L muses. "Why on earth would Ryuk warn you of my fate?"

"Because that Shinigami has just one goal, L," Rae says derisively. "To be entertained."

"And can you convince him that turning in his mistress would be more entertaining than helping her?"

"You'd have better luck trying to convince a cactus of the same thing."

L raises his eyebrows.

"Do you get along with _any_ of your kind?"

"Now who's not focusing?" Rae demands. "Tell me where this place is!"

"It has to be the abandoned meatworks along Dutton Road," L surmises, opening up a map of the general area on his computer. "I heard the instructions - a crude list of lefts and rights - which lead to this building here."

"A meatworks. Lovely," the Shinigami replies with disgust.

"I want you to scour the place for evidence," L requests. "And then contact me as soon as you are finished, unless the nature of your findings precludes an urgent situation. I trust you will make the right decisions."

Rae laughs.

"You're giving me free reign?"

L regards it quizzically. Rae has always had free reign. He can hardly control the damn thing.

"The biggest problem is not going to be identifying faux-Kira," he explains. "But rather, obtaining solid evidence of her crimes. We must find out who she is quickly, so that we can concentrate on making her slip up and reveal herself."

The same problem as last time. Sometimes L is ridiculously glad that he has Rae. Anything to give him an edge. Anything.

"All right. This should take me two hours, maximum," Rae informs him. "If you leave the building, I will fucking kill you."

"Understood," L intones, and smiles.

* * *

Naomi rests her head against the cool table, her tea sitting abandoned by her chair. She's too tired for this shit.

Actually, 'tired' seems to be a permanent state of being for her, lately. When she's like this, she can't help but wonder if Kira is controlling her again. And she _knows_ her fear is an irrational one. There's no way that anyone from the outside world could know her name and her face, especially not before she's even started properly investigating this case. But still.

Now there's the possibility that Kira isn't a part of the 'outside world'. He might be right in the building, right now, and she doesn't even want to think about it.

Her idol. Her dream. Her boss.

_He wouldn't, would he?_

Raye thumps his computer a few times, probably more out of a need to relieve pent-up anger than any actual percussive maintenance.

"Mail?" she says, reaching a decision.

"What, lady?" the younger man snaps.

"What do you know of the Shinigami?" she asks carefully. "You are the only person here who was around when things were being discovered about them."

"I've never even _seen_ one," he informs her, his voice sullen and unpleasant.

"And what of their motives? Why do they distribute death notes, and for how long?"

"Eh?"

Naomi tugs at her hair.

"I'm just trying to understand why L would keep a note for so long, if he truly has no intention of using it. Why not just give it back?"

"He asked me to destroy it on several occasions," Watari interrupts politely. "I presume this was specifically forced on him."

"Does all this psychobabble stuff really matter?" Raye asks. "We need to stop trying to understand frigging _monsters_ and try to work out if L's murdering people or not."

"Another criminal was just killed," Mail says gruffly, and Naomi springs from her chair and rushes to his side. His computer is presently broadcasting the top-secret feed that the US government has set up to record faux-Kira's victims. The world is still managing to conceal the existence of this new Kira from the general public, so collating information in such a way is ideal.

The new Kira is female, if Rae is to be believed. If she can convince herself that it cannot possibly be L.

"So they were," Raye says disdainfully. "So what?"

"So I have the notebook," Naomi reminds him. "Which means that someone else just killed that person."

"The same someone else who killed all the others, hopefully," Mail adds.

_Even you_, she thinks, with some fondness. _Even you, who feels so wronged, even you want to believe he's innocent._

_Didn't everyone want to believe Light was innocent, too?_

She shakes her head. L is _not_ Light, no matter how she looks at it. L went through the hell that was the original Kira case. L saves people. He _saves_ people. And not by destroying other people, either.

Watari touches her on the shoulder. He almost never makes physical contact with anyone. He must be as tremendously unnerved as the rest of the team.

"N," he says seriously. "Do you think he's capable of these terrible things?"

No one has asked her that yet, not directly. She frowns. What does he think she's spent the last three hours _worrying_ about? She's been running through every conversation, every case, every word, every moment, trying to convince herself whether or not L has the moral capacity to kill. Like this.

Like Light.

"I think you already know," Watari says kindly. "You are just unwilling to say so."

"What I _think_ isn't enough," she replies firmly. "I need evidence."

"There will be no evidence, if he is innocent."

"We're not finding any evidence," Mail says, quickly.

_Yes. He was your mentor, just as he was mine. We don't want to think…_

"He's had the note for four years, you said," Raye mutters. "He spoke of other Shinigami. He's been solving a huge number of cases lately, probably with this thing's help."

"But none of the cases have had supporting evidence through the convenient death of a key figure," Mail tells him. "L would use it to solve cases more than anything, wouldn't he? I mean, he let that Lind guy get murdered in order to locate Kira. He's not opposed to letting people die in the name of greater justice, and yet he hasn't used the note to solve cases."

"Light was a good liar," Naomi reminds him, hating herself a little for it.

"L is a good liar," Raye points out.

"And?" Mail asks. "Is that it? I can't even trust the fucking bastard any more, but I don't think he's _Kira_. Criminals are being killed right now. The timing makes no sense. He would not have organised his own kidnapping. He isn't running away. There is _no evidence_."

"I don't care what you say, Watari," Raye says blackly. "Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of innocence."

"Then disagree with _this_," Mail says vehemently. "The pattern is wrong. The last thing L would _ever _do is emulate the original Kira."

And there it is. What she's been looking for. She sort of wants to cry from the enormity of it all.

"That's…that's true, I suppose," Raye says awkwardly. "But-"

"He's right," Naomi interrupts, viscerally relieved. "L is the last person…I won't entertain this notion a second longer."

"Hold up," her husband calls, panicked. "Naomi, you can't be _certain_. This is…far from conclusive. You could be wrong."

Naomi regards him for a long second.

"We could always be wrong," she says, finally. "That's a risk we take, isn't it? Have we no respect for him at all?"

"I hate his fucking guts," Mail says viciously.

"And yet you've been his strongest supporter throughout this discussion," Naomi says curiously. "Why?"

Mail shrugs and touches his rosary.

"I dunno. It's what _he_ would have done. I think."

Naomi feels strangely at peace. She's made her decision. L will not be locked up. L will lead the investigation. Everything is out of her hands.

Including this godforsaken _notebook_. She can practically feel it burning a hole into the table next to her hand. She's tempted to write down '_Light Yagami_', just so they can all sleep a little better in their beds at night. Just to be _safe_.

God, how does L put up with this thing? How is he so strong?

She knew he was strong. That's why she was drawn to him in the first place. It's this illness. This mental haze. She's been doubting herself. An unexpected thing is not the same as a malevolent thing, and a weapon alone does not an evil man make.

So she goes to take the death note back to L. Sealing the fate of the world, one way or the other. Because that's what they do.

* * *

Jas blows her hair out of her eyes and folds her arms. Then she unfolds them, fiddles with the cuff of her expensive suit, and scratches her stubble.

She's not overly fond of playing Big Jason, but that isn't what's bothering her right now.

"Tell me once more what happened, right from the start," she orders. Because she's sure of one thing, she should have needed to go and rescue L at the last minute.

And she didn't.

"Look, I just did what you told me to do," Ryuk says defensively. He jiggles his spindly knees against the dashboard. "Geeze, there isn't much room in this car. Can't we go somewhere el-"

"No! Answer the question, Ryuk."

"Fine," he says petulantly. "I went to the headquarters, I said what you wanted me to say, the brat freaked out and hit people with the death note, and then they went and crashed a car and saved L and that's all. And now my new charge is flipping her lid because someone was lost and she's convinced it was the real L. Which it was, heh."

"And you followed the script exactly?"

"Yup. Told her I'd report to you when L was actually dead. She's pretty annoyed with me right now. It's kinda funny."

"And she has no sense of disbelief, to your knowledge?" the queen asks carefully. One thing at a time.

"No, she's buying it. She's frightened. And she's enough in awe of Big Jason to believe that he's able to bully a poor little Shinigami like myself," Ryuk grins.

"And…the other?"

Because she's uneasy. She gives everyone a chance, but sometimes she'd really like to throw away the key. There are people the world would be better off without.

Sometimes, she'd like to play god. She would like to be the ultimate justice. She could be. She has the note. Nothing would stop her.

"Also buying it, don't worry. To tell you the truth, I'm kinda disappointed."

"This is bad, Ryuk," she says tersely. "This is very bad."

"Hey, don't worry about it," he says easily. "You don't interfere with people's hells, you stick to the script, if they get out, then they're good people. Right? So don't worry."

"I will worry," she barks. "Worrying is what I _do_!"

"Lately, yes," he says.

He's always good for pointing out the damn obvious.

"It's been hard lately. There have been…borderline humans."

"Uh huh. You're still unhappy about Wakefield, aren't you? She passed her test! She's not your problem any more."

Unconsciously, the queen touches the locket around her neck. She has photographs of all of her charges. Most of them are in her home in the Shinigami realm. But there are a few she keeps on her person.

If Keehl doesn't redeem himself, maybe she will have to rethink her own methods.

"Oh no, now you're fawning over blondie again," Ryuk says disgustedly. "I am outta here!"

"Wait!" she commands. One more instruction, and then she can be temporarily rid of his company.

"Er, yes?"

"You still have another task for tonight, Ryuk. You _will_ follow the script, won't you?"

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, such an inanely human habit.

"It _does_ seem kind of unfair," he says hesitantly.

"That is not for you to decide?"

"Is it for _you_ to decide?" he ventures. He's too goddamned daring. She ought to send him straight back to the king.

But no one else will work quite as well. She can trust him. She's, like, eighty percent sure.

"Guilty conscience, Ryuk?"

"No," he mutters, but does not meet her eyes.

"Good. Then I will consider it done. See you tomorrow."

He flutters off into the distance, still grumbling to himself. Jas sighs and slumps against the seat. She misses Rebecca. She just wants a _break_. Some time away from all the evil souls in this world, and the impossible task of judging them.

But if Lawliet is still going, then she can keep going, too.

She is not about to be outdone by a _human_, no matter how brilliant.

* * *

Naomi places the note on the table, and leaves without a word, and the pieces of L's world come back together just like that.

Rae still has not returned.

* * *

_Failure_.

She flinches, and pushes the hair from her face. L escaped. He _escaped_, the bastard. He was drugged and chained and locked in the back of a car, and he _still _escaped. Clearly, his hired help outclasses her own.

She will not make that mistake again.

_Failure._

The word echoes around her head. She hears it in Light's voice, cold and beautiful and ruthless, chiding her for her mistakes, for making him _wait_. It must be tremendously undignifying for him, to be at the mercy of a petty crook like Jason.

And really, this entire unfortunate situation can be almost completely blamed on L. Him, and his damned, pathetic little successors. She will feel no pity when she kills him. Those who defy Kira are inevitably bad, rotten people. Why else would they stand in the way of a perfect, happy world?

Now all she needs to do is catch him. See his face, read his name, and the rest is history. And once she knows his name, she and Light will be able to banish him from any world they choose, a never-ending cycle of running and dying, no more than he deserves.

Realistically, there is always the chance that L never went to the park. If that is the case, then the Shinigami's advice can be considered completely useless.

She was a fool to trust it in the first place. From now on, she will do this _alone_. With the help of the death note, of course. But disregarding its errant owner.

"Are we gonna go back to the meatworks?" he asks, hanging over her like a bad smell.

"I don't think that would be useful," she says, with a bright little smile. "The last man to die killed himself by detonating a few explosives."

Just in case anyone tracked her. Just in case anyone goes looking for evidence. She cannot afford any more setbacks. Light is waiting. He doesn't like to wait.

And damn Jason and his damn Shinigami aren't going to make her tardy.

"Ah, got it. So is this your next move?" he asks, long fingers twirling in front of her computer screen. "You're going to advertise _online_ to find fellow Kira supporters? Don't you think L is maybe going to see this website and try to use it to get to you?"

"I'm counting on that," she replies, confidently.

* * *

Rae gets back around midnight, a good five hours after it left, looking decidedly worse for wear.

"She killed them," it says, sounding vacant and disbelieving. "They were already dead by the time I got there."

"All the other people who went to Staton park today?" L guesses.

"Yes. And don't ask me who they were. Even if my vision were working, all I found was a collapsed building and a lot of exploded body parts."

L sighs and touches his lips.

"Clever. Since the bodies are no longer identifiable, it would be impossible to locate anyone else who might have been there at the time. But this information is not useless, either."

"Right," Rae agrees monotonously. "Her actions are brutal but simple-minded."

"Yes," L agrees indulgently. "I doubt the original Kira has a hand in this. Nothing she has done so far has been particularly clever, except when she was guided by her Shinigami."

"I _told_ you so."

"I wanted proof," L says simply.

Not Light. Not Light. This is good. Anyone else, he can handle. He breathes deeply and closes his eye for a few seconds.

"So now we don't have to worry about you doing her job for her and giving _yourself_ a heart attack, I guess," Rae says distantly, cracking its knuckles.

L frowns. His Shinigami is fidgety and distracted. Abnormal. And it is very, very late.

"Of course, from today's events, we can also conclude that she must be attempting to kill me, specifically," he says quietly. "What happened, Rae? What is wrong?"

"My maximum speed has been handicapped," it says, voice as soft as his. "I…I don't. I don't know why. Yet."

L freezes.

"What? Why? You told me that only your eyes were affected. You told me-"

"I told you I didn't know what was going on!" it says harshly. "I don't! This is. I. It's not…"

"I need to figure this out," L says, wringing his hands. He displays his fear and concern overtly. "I have not even been thinking about your disability."

If this is all a lie, if Rae is trying to emotionally blackmail him into using the death note, then it will ask him to make it king right now. In a pathetic, frightened little voice, he imagines.

"No. Focus on your goddamned faux-Kira case. We had an agreement, remember?"

L stares at it. The bright light from the lamp throws shadows over its face, along the deep ridges and sharp edges of its bony body, making it look more insidious, more sinister than usual. Appearances can be so deceiving. He knows that.

_You are not who I thought you were_, he thinks. This is incredible, really. In any other situation, he'd be more intrigued than anything else.

But he has a responsibility to this thing, now. This death god that tries to protect people and solve cases and _saved his goddamned life_.

And yet, that all came about around the same time that its eyes changed. Before that it was a demon, monstrous and remorseless. It was _happy_ when Matsuda was killed. It tortured him for days on end. It would have cheerfully left him to die. It made Rem cry.

Of course, even then, it had always wanted him to use the note against _evil_. Not just anyone. So had it simply been tailoring its suggestions to what it thought would appeal to him? Or has it always kept to some strange notion of justice?

And did the eyes _cause_ the change in personality, or are they simply representative? Is this some Jekyll-and-Hyde creature that shifts backwards and forwards based on some unknown trigger, or has it genuinely evolved?

And why is it becoming more debilitated as its apparent morality improves? There are certainly _good_ Shinigami in the world, and Rem always seemed to operate at full capacity. What is it being punished for?

Why would anyone want this unstable thing as king?

It saved him.

"All right," he concedes. "But please take care of yourself. I will help you if you need me."

"I don't need you."

"Fine," L says steadily. "We are alone now. Tell me what happened to Rem."

"Oh," it says tiredly, and sits down next to his chair. "Rem is dead."

L turns that statement over in his mind a few times.

"Dead?" he echoes. "What? How?"

"I don't know. I only heard about it from the other Shinigami."

L shoves an entire blackberry cupcake into his mouth, and chews furiously.

"Sho sheef fnot-"

"Swallow and try again, dick," Rae says testily.

"Ugh, sorry. So death means she cannot return to this world any more, either."

Which means that Rem is where Misa will be, if Misa manages to save herself from hell. Wait, does Rem still love Misa, if she loves him now? Will she forget about him?

He's not sure how he feels about that. No-one has ever been in love with him before. And as much as he wants Rem to be freed from the confines of her treacherous heart, he would rather that she stay with someone like him than go back to Misa, who will at best ignore and at worst abuse her infatuation.

And he…he misses Rem. She was his ally. And she was powerful.

She was tantamount to Matsuda, in the way she made him feel secure.

He is becoming more and more alone in the world.

A thought strikes him.

"Who did she attempt to save?" he asks softly. "Do you know how she died? Did she die for me?"

If that is true, then he is not certain that he can live with that fact. No-one should die for him. He is meant to _save_ people.

"I don't know, for sure," Rae says slowly. "But I know it was strange. Something happened. The others say she was deliberately killed."

"How does one murder a Shinigami?" L asks, bewildered. "That does not make any sense."

"The queen can do it, apparently," Rae says with obvious disgust. "The queen can kill the others, if she chooses to. I don't know why the king gives the stupid bint so much power."

"The queen?"

If he remembers correctly, both Rem and Rae have mentioned the queen in conjunction with hell.

'_It's part of my hell to know the fate of others, I suppose. She tells me things, sometimes.'_

'_Who is she? What does she know?'_

'_Do not ask me that. One should never discuss the queen.'_

"Rae," he says carefully. "What does the queen actually do?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, but what do the rumours say?"

Rae shifts and flexes its arms.

"From what I've heard, most of the others think she holds a decorative position. The more dramatic occasionally claim she controls hell itself."

L's eyes widen.

"That's a fairly large discrepancy."

Rae shrugs.

"Secrecy brings out the conspiracy theorists."

"You don't believe it, then?" L enquires. "I would have thought you'd be the type to investigate all the possibilities, Shinigami."

"It's rubbish."

"You know for sure?"

"Doesn't it sound like a load of rubbish to you, L? No one controls hell."

L tilts his head, the tip of his thumb touching his lower teeth. If the queen controls hell, and the queen killed Rem, then Rem is…then Rem has been redeemed.

The thought makes him singularly happy.

And…why is Rae so convinced? Is this part of the present-king's plan to keep it utterly ignorant to the structure of the Shinigami world? Why?

He hops out of his chair, kicks it to the side, and crouches beside Rae on the floor.

"Or is that what she wants you to think?"

Rae rolls its eyes at him.

"Whatever. I'm not frightened of the queen."

"Rem said you could not harm her because she was in the queen's jurisdiction," L continues. "We know Rem was in hell, so-"

"Whoa, wait. What? Seriously?"

"You didn't know?"

_This is…no, this is not good_.

"Why would I know something like that? She doesn't talk to me. Besides, she's been around _forever_."

L shakes his head slowly.

"Why are you not bothered by this? It's like…"

It is as if Rae has been programmed to be unable to question its own situation. And now it is coming apart.

L is beginning to get a tremendous sense of _unfair_ surrounding his Shinigami's situation. And he'll be damned if he isn't going to do something about that.

"It's like this. Rem is not my favourite person. She has always hated me, and not for any particularly good reason. In return, I've never really learned much of her situation."

"Fine," L says doubtfully. "But look at it this way. The evidence is piling up for the connection between the queen and hell."

"Hardly."

"What would it take for you to take me to the queen?"

"I can't take you," Rae says exasperatedly. "She wanders. She goes wherever she wants. She has a home somewhere the no other Shinigami can reach unless she lets them. She shows up when she wants something from you, and I'm hoping that never happens to me."

"I understand," L says politely, although he doesn't. "One more question, please."

"Fine."

"Would you know her, if you saw her?"

Rae ponders this for a moment.

"Possibly not, I suppose."

L nods firmly. The conversation is over. He will get no more useful information from Rae in its present state.

_I will fix you. I will work this out, and I will fix you_.

The sky beyond the window is ink-blue and endless, studded with stars. Sometimes L wonders how many more people he can save.

How much time does he have left? In this world, in the next world, in any world?

If he can teach Rae everything he knows, and the Shinigami goes on protecting the innocent, then he will be immortal. The legend will live forever, long after the man has perished. Yes, he would like that.

Will he even see Rae again, once the five years are over?

L reaches out, and wraps three of his fingers around Rae's lowest rib.

"The men who captured me gave no useful information," he says conversationally. "One of them has laid eyes on the woman who hired them, and described her as Asian in appearance, slender build, and long dark hair."

"That doesn't exactly narrow things down spectacularly."

"No. And of course, the chance is high that she is just an agent for the real faux-Kira. They also believe that this woman is trying to destroy 'some big name detective, I dunno', because apparently that will bring back the original Kira."

Which is _not_ possible. Light is in hell. And he is evil, through and through, rotten to the core, no heart, no soul, nothing with which to redeem himself. L doesn't have to worry.

Rae is here. L doesn't have to worry.

"Somehow, I think she's just crazy," Rae says flippantly. "Besides, it's not as if you're keeping Kira prisoner in your bathroom. I don't see how killing you is supposed to achieve anything."

"If…," L starts, hesitates, and starts again. "If by some incredible catastrophe Light is _not_ in hell – and he is here, somewhere, hiding – then it is not impossible that he is unwilling to show his face until I am gone. But I severely doubt he would hold me in such high regard."

And his name is in the Tracking Library. He's not _here_, damnit. People need to stop insinuating that he might be.

"You save a lot of people," Rae comments. "You must be worth _some_ regard, at least."

Absently, L reaches inside its chest, tracing rough costal edges. The fire doesn't burn him, doesn't affect him at all. Shinigami are biologically fascinating. Theoretically, he'd love to dissect one.

Of course, being gods, there probably wouldn't be much to see.

"I doubt it," he says bitterly. "I was destroyed far too easily."

"Whatever," Rae says, maybe a little awkwardly. "That was a long time ago, wasn't it? You need to stop dwelling on the past. You need to beat this faux-Kira first, and then you'll never have to worry about the real Kira suddenly crawling out from under your bed and stabbing you."

"Thank you. Now I will have to check under my bed every night for the next month," L says, making a face. "Also, the death note is in my possession again. We will be working with the rest of my team. I hope this is not too much of a setback for you."

"No, it's fine," Rae says tersely. It seems strangely tense, all of a sudden. "Uh. Do you want me to search this town for Ryuk?"

"Not tonight," L replies. "Faux-Kira will be on the move right now. We should wait until she is settled, otherwise we will be wasting resources. Especially if your speed has been crippled."

"Fair point."

"Besides, I ought to sleep tonight. I would like you to watch over the death note. I don't need to tell you that now there is an increased risk that someone will attempt to steal it."

After all, his entire team now knows that he carries it with him. Which makes it five times less safe than before, no matter how much he trusts them.

The death note corrupts people. It turns them into the worst kind of creatures. Light was once someone like him. He knows that. It keeps him strong.

"Yeah, fine. Look, can you stop doing that now?"

L's hand stills against cool, flat bone, and he regards his Shinigami questioningly.

"Stop what?"

"Your hand is inside my chest," Rae grits.

"Oh. Does it hurt?"

_Why do you not disappear, then_, L wonders, grimly suspecting that he already knows the answer to that.

It is losing its powers.

"No, but it's uncomfortable. That's kind of an intimate thing to do to somebody."

L raises his eyebrows, but he doesn't withdraw his hand. Not yet. Not quite.

"Oh. Do Shinigami feel pleasure, Rae? You are not stopping me."

"Stop _yourself_, damn you!"

L moves his thumb, stroking ever so slightly. Rae grips his forearm, and throws L's hand back against his chest.

"Enough!" it snarls.

L doesn't move for a few seconds.

"Have you lost your ability to become immaterial?" he asks softly.

Rae gets abruptly to its feet, knocking him sprawling across the floor.

"Go to sleep," it says hoarsely. "Or find something to do. Leave me alone."

L gets into bed without another word, and feigns sleep for a long time before he actually drifts off. Perhaps there are some things in the world that he simply cannot fix, some problems that he simply cannot solve.

_Mello_.

_Rae_.

But he hates and despises losing, child that he is. So he's going to try, damnit. Maybe until it kills him.

* * *

Ryuk ambles through the wall, and exaggeratedly avoids even _looking _at the bowl of fruit. Let it never be said that he doesn't learn from past disappointments. Especially if they involve apples.

L is curled up in a tiny ball near the foot of his bed, with his thumb in his mouth and his knees jammed under his chin. And Ryuk really isn't the type to wax poetic about human men, but yeah, he _is_ kinda cute. Ryuk will pay that one.

About half a nanosecond later, Rae notices him.

"You," it growls, and grabs him by the arm. "We need to talk."

"Relax," he says cheerfully. "I've _come_ here to talk, kiddo. I thought you could use some help."

"Like you helped me the _last_ time, by getting L captured?"

"What can I say? It was entertaining," Ryuk says, wondering if he's going to get punched in the face again. That might not be so much fun. Physical violence gets boring pretty quickly.

"You _fucking_-"

"Besides, no one asked you to go and reveal yourself to a whole bunch of people," he says quickly. "That was your own doing. And pretty stupid, if you ask me. Isn't that gonna make your job harder, if L has support?"

"No, and that's none of your business," Rae tells him curtly. "He would have been killed."

"The police might have stepped in and saved him," Ryuk points out.

He can't say that the queen wouldn't have let L die. He can't say that the queen won't allow someone to be killed by those in her jurisdiction unless that person's lifespan is about to run out anyway.

And he certainly can't point out that L's lifespan is important.

"I doubt it," Rae says. "No-one knew of her plan except those she had employed. And being saved would have still revealed his face to a lot of people."

"Ah," Ryuk says. "Yeah. See, _there's_ your problem."

His younger colleague stares at him belligerently.

"What? What are you talking about?"

Ryuk points to Rae's eyes.

"Have you lost the capacity to read names, yet?"

Rae scrubs at its face.

"There's nothing wrong with me," it says vehemently. "You can tell the king that there's nothing wrong with me."

"Right. Can't make yourself immaterial at will? Slowing down? Lost the ability to fly, kiddo?"

"I can still fly," Rae protests.

Ryuk stares at it, a little gobsmacked.

"You've lost everything else, already?" he asks. "Wow. I. Okay, wow. I would not have called that."

He's pretty glad he didn't place any bets on it, now.

"Called _what_?" Rae spits. "What's wrong with me?"

"I think it's pretty obvious," he replies. "You _like_ him, don't you?"

Rae freezes for a second.

"What are you talking about?" it hisses.

Ryuk waves his arms in the air amicably.

"Bear in mind that this is all part of the king's test," he says broadly. "He won't let just anyone ascend the throne, you know. You've been pitted against the most difficult human in the world, and not just because L is morally stubborn."

The other Shinigami narrows its eyes at him.

"Explain."

"He's _good_, Rae. Surely you've seen what he does with other humans. People are _drawn_ to him, he enchants people. Once someone spends too much time around him they can't leave."

"Naomi," Rae says thoughtfully. "Ugh. You are right, I have noticed that. I think it's something he does without realising it."

"His magnetism wasn't particularly well-developed in the first world," Ryuk continues. "But he has slowly become so innately human that it's almost contagious. Rae. He can strip a death god of their power, given enough time. Why do you think I never went near him? I can't stand up to that! And apparently, neither can you. Five years will be too long. He's _making_ you like him. Soon you won't have the strength to get him to use the note at all."

"That's not true," Rae says, sounding a little sick. "I…the king knew I cared for humans when he appointed me. I feel nothing for him, specifically. That cannot be."

"The king can never fall for a human," Ryuk recites, waggling one finger in the air. "And L is the most human of humans."

"But he _lets people die_. And I _don't_ like him," Rae says emphatically.

"Yeah?" Ryuk enquires. "How long has it been since you've been able to get angry with him, then? When was the last time you had your eyes? Did he promise to help you, or something?"

Rae stares at the ceiling for a long moment, visibly shaking.

Then it laughs.

And laughs.

And laughs.

"So that's his game, is it?" it asks finally, gasping for breath. "And the king thinks I can't handle it? Heh. I'm sure I would have worked it out on my own pretty soon, but you've helped me a lot tonight, Ryuk. Thank you."

"You held some affection for him, then?" Ryuk asks carefully.

"I let my guard down. That was a mistake," Rae says simply, and its eyes are pure, vicious red. "Familiarity breeds contentment, I suppose, and I had other things to focus on. It will not happen again. I haven't forgotten the things he refused to do. The people he wouldn't save. I've just been distracted."

"Yeah, well, you're still not allowed to hurt him," Ryuk says. "And you still need to break him, make him use the note."

"Oh, I'm not concerned," Rae says cheerfully. "After all, this humanity of his is his curse as much as everyone else's. In the end, he'll make me king. He will have no other choice. I won't have to do a thing. And in the meantime, I'll use him to save people. As effectively as I can."

"Yeah, well," Ryuk mutters. "When you get your crown, I want lots of apples. Human apples. Every day. You owe me."

"Oh, don't worry. I'll remember what you've done," Rae says darkly. "And by the way, what is your mistress doing in England? Surely she'd be more comfortable staying in Japan?"

"Oh," Ryuk says, confused. "I dunno. She has plans over here, I guess."

Rae smiles.

"So she is Japanese? Good. That was a wild guess, by the way."

"Oookay," Ryuk says. "I think I'm going to stop talking to you now. I shouldn't really be here at all. The king would kill me."

"Off you go," Rae says brightly. It opens and closes one hand, and grins. "I feel incredible. I can't believe he _got_ to me. Thank you, again."

"You're welcome," Ryuk blurs, and leaves quickly.

Sometimes, he sort of hates himself.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ I have absolutely no idea why this chapter is so long, considering virtually nothing of significance happens.

+ my new nickname for Ryuk in this fic is 'Mr Helpfully-pointing-things-out'.

+ thank you for reading! I am sorry this chapter took so long.


	28. Backwards

notes/warnings

+ swearing

+ tweaking of the death note rules. which is the least of this fic's problems, really.

* * *

**Backwards**

L wakes up to sunshine, and the smell of Watari's blueberry waffles, and a giant, smirking monster leering at him malevolently.

He pushes himself onto the balls of his feet. Red-eyed Rae is back.

"Hallo," he says softly, both bewildered and relieved. "I see you are better."

His Shinigami is safe, then. He feels as if an enormous weight has been lifted from his shoulders. One less thing to do. One less person to save.

Today must be a good day, he supposes.

"Correct," Rae says dismissively, and goes back to typing on his computer. "Faux-Kira killed seventeen people while you slept."

L wipes the grime from his good eye, and smiles.

"As expected, then. How did you fix yourself? Will you be able to do it again, if need be?"

Rae looks at him with such intense, confident dislike that L feels mildly ill.

"Oh, don't worry about _me_," it says brightly. "Nothing will be going wrong with me again. I've worked it out. I _promise_."

"That's good," L says, a little subdued by its sarcasm.

_Something has happened_, he thinks. _You said you would watch over me. Did you leave? Have you been talking to someone?_

_Have you learned something_?

"You finally became angry enough?" he queries.

"You know, I find it interesting that you're theorising about gods of death while people are dying out there," Rae says damningly. "Why am I not surprised?"

_Ah. _

_To be who you were before, you must be…who you were before_. _Yes, that makes sense. The personality begets the power._

_This is what it takes to keep you safe._

"I understand," L says quietly, heavily, and goes downstairs to find the rest of his team.

* * *

L finds himself speaking solely to fill the silence.

"We now have confirmation that faux-Kira is also in possession of the Shinigami eyes," he says distractedly, shuffling fast so that he can keep pace with Naomi. "That is useful to know."

"Yes," she replies curtly. "Probably."

"It means that we cannot approach this woman with our faces covered, no matter how skilfully, because she will instantaneously know that we are disguised, and be suspicious of us."

A mask that hides the face also hides the name, and will therefore be obvious to faux-Kira. If they wish to get close to her, the only remaining option is for one of them to offer up their own identity.

And place themselves at the mercy of this new Kira. An intolerable sacrifice. But what else can be done? Attack faux-Kira without any secrecy or finesse at all? Such a tactic is unlikely to have a favourable outcome.

"Of course."

"Naomi," L says directly. "What do you know of the women who were closely affiliated with the original Kira? Did Light…mention anyone, when you spoke to him?"

"Don't ask me about that," she says coldly.

"But-"

"To be frank, L, I'm not sure why you're here," Naomi continues unkindly. "I've been up all night trying to make heads or tails of this death note situation, I'm tired, I need sleep, and I really don't feel like conversing with _you_. And don't tell me you just happened to be going in this direction, because I know that all of the rooms in this part of the building are living quarters. You have no business being here right now."

L regards the floor. He already feels as if he's had Rae ripped out from under him, and he still doesn't really understand why. And there's no _guarantee_ that faux-Kira isn't original Kira, and Rem is dead, and maybe _he_'s earned the right to say what he means, too. Just occasionally.

"I need your support, N," he says quietly. "I cannot…I cannot…"

Naomi glares at him pointedly.

"Damn you," she hisses. "I'm _here_, aren't I? God knows you can't do all of this on your own, no one can. But you've been concealing this _thing_ from all of us for years, and that's pretty fucking hard to take, you know?"

"You gave the note back," he says simply. "You indicated that you trusted me."

"You still lied to us."

"What would you have done?" L asks her gravely. "In my situation, N, what would _you_ have chosen to do?"

She rubs at her face, and in that moment, L is shocked by how old she appears to have become.

"It was never my choice to make," she tells him sadly. "I have no answer for you."

"I did it to protect people," L explains. "Whether what I did was right or not, that was my reasoning."

Naomi walks towards him, expression guarded, eyes low. She lifts the hem of his shirt and presses her palm to the notebook.

"Such a small thing," she says, shaking her head. "Is this your plan, L? To carry this damned temptation with you forever?"

L hesitates. He must presume that Rae is no longer his friend or ally, which means that it is likely to tell the others the truth about its motives without regard for his safety and employee retention. Which means that perhaps it is in his best interests to tell Naomi the truth. Now.

But not the others. Not yet.

"No," he says carefully. "One more year. That is all."

"Oh?"

"My Shinigami operates under conditions. It has five years with me. Then it will leave, and take the note with it."

Any other person would probably have demonstrated relief at that statement, but Naomi is nothing if not astute.

"Why?" she asks, frowning.

"That is its challenge. It has five years within which to break me. If it succeeds, it ascends the Shinigami throne."

"Whoa, hold on," Naomi says, pressing her palm to her forehead. "These death gods have some sort of government? This thing is some sort of prince? What do you _mean_, break you?"

L smiles sadly.

"I believe it is because I am the person least likely to use the note, so I am the greatest challenge."

Naomi's hand drops away from his chest, and he automatically tugs his shirt back into place. She leans against the wall.

"L, are you telling me this thing is trying to _make_ you kill people?"

"Yes. That is what it does."

"And _that's_ why you've been so exhausted all the time," she concludes. "I can't believe you didn't tell us, L. I can't believe you didn't tell _me_."

"I told you why I made that decision."

"But you've been _suffering_," she says hotly. "All this time. We could have helped you."

"Could you? How?"

She pinches the bridge of her nose. This whole argument is pointless, and they both know it.

"I don't know, exactly, but I'm sure I could have done _something_."

"I did not need help. I need all of you to be _safe_!" he snaps, because this is getting ridiculous. She's already _admitted_ she wouldn't trust herself with the note. Surely she can see things from his point of view.

"So we are your weakness," she says softly. "Geeze. Does that _thing_ know this?"

"Thirty four percent likelihood," he says guardedly.

Of course it knows. But there's little point in worrying Naomi with that.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'."

Damn. First he was captured by a couple of amateur thugs, now he's having trouble lying to his own staff. What the hell is _wrong_ with him?

"It is already convinced that I will use the notebook," he admits. "As such, it has stopped trying to psychologically browbeat me into complying."

"Oh. That's always good," she says sarcastically.

He is not about to explain to her that Rae initially tortured and despised him, then lauded him with insults and misgivings, then became his greatest ally and possibly more of a source of comfort than he ever cared to admit to himself, and has now volleyed right back into the misgivings again.

He's certainly not going to tell her that he's actually bothered by this.

"Yes, it is good."

"So do you think you'll use it?"

Ah. Yes. The million-dollar question.

"I tend to be fairly adept at learning from other people's mistakes," he assures her. "I believe the answer to your question is 'never'."

Naomi reaches out and ruffles his hair.

"Good answer," she says, with a tiny, worried smile.

* * *

There is no point in being angry at L. For one, he has all the social capacity of a soup spoon, and probably doesn't care how she feels about him on a personal level. And it would be idiotic to mistrust him on a professional level, because he's still the best Kira-fighting weapon in this world.

He just better not lay down his life to win, this time. Naomi isn't sure what she'd do without him.

As far as rank goes, of course, she ought to succeed him and become the new L. The problem is that she's not really sure she'd be able to stand up to Raye's constant nagging and negativity without L's calm, unwavering support. She estimates that if anything happened to her boss, she'd eventually be forced to choose between her husband and her happiness.

No one should have to make that choice. Damn Raye for putting her in this position.

And damn _L_, and his nobility, and his death note, and his stupid habit of suffering in silence. He breaks her fucking heart, and lately he's been doing that on a daily basis. She wishes she could _make_ him be honest, at least with her. She would still protect the others from whatever they should not know. He needs someone else. He needs at least _one_ more person.

Maybe it's not nobility. Maybe it's that wretched stubbornness. She isn't the protégé he wanted, so he doesn't trust her. Maybe he needs Mello, or that other kid. Near. Maybe he is simply an intellectual snob.

Maybe that doesn't matter in the slightest. Maybe he's earned the right to be a snob. And maybe if he saves some arbitrary, predetermined number of people, he'll finally relax and let himself be happy.

"All right," she says. "We're done here, right? You still don't have any other business on this floor."

He's hovering, and she is in desperate need of a shower. Unlike _some_ geniuses she could name, she needs to be clean at least once a day to avoid feeling like a giant walking talking ball of grit and filth.

L stops, and she realises that he's staring past her, to the abandoned, locked room at the other end of the hall.

No one has been into that room in years.

"I did not come down here with the intention of speaking to you," he admits. "I wanted to research the faux-Kira case."

"Mail?" she suggests, because she's just realised what he is going to do, and as useful as it will be, it's going to _hurt_.

"He doesn't know that much. Mello went to great lengths to protect him from the original Kira case."

Naomi tips her head thoughtfully.

"Mello must have loved him, at least a little."

"That doesn't really matter now," he replies. He pushes past her, hands shoved deep into his pockets, moving as if in a trance. There is a distinct line on the floor, just past her room, where the carpet is dramatically less worn. Nobody goes here.

L stops for a moment, and turns back to her.

"I've never really looked at his Kira files before," he says, in a small voice. "I don't know if they will be legible."

He never used to speak of the case that killed him. Naomi thinks he was probably happier when he could pretend that it had never happened.

All of them are dead. None of them can deny that it happened.

"Are they likely to be sufficiently detailed?" she asks cautiously.

"I don't know. I will find out."

He unlocks the door without any ceremony at all, the key dangling from his thin fingers. Sometimes Naomi worries he might just break in half.

Matsuda's room is dim and dusty, and only haphazardly tidy. Even Watari has not ventured beyond the threshold of the door. And there are remnants of their old colleague everywhere; the flowery duvet cover, the poster of some ridiculously-proportioned blonde model on the wall, the overflowing drawers, the dead cactus by the window. He was always so desperate to be trendy. There are photographs of various members of their team pinned to the wardrobe. There are more of L than anyone else, and Naomi thinks L probably would have been better off not knowing that particular fact.

Her boss does not hesitate. He makes a beeline for the filing cabinet.

"Enjoy your shower, N," he says lightly. "Please come and see me when you are rested and ready for work."

She touches the door. It smells undefinably like Matsuda in here, even after all this time.

"That can wait," she says decisively. "I'll help you, first."

This is not something L should do alone.

* * *

L is weaker now than ever before, heavy with terror and love, running from himself, running from everything. Being slowly deconstructed by those around him because he is no longer fit for his job.

This will be easy. It's always easy, when one knows all the rules.

_I did it before, and I'll do it again_.

* * *

"Misa Amane," Naomi says sadly. "You know, I feel sorry for this girl."

She has a tattered notebook open in her lap, and her index finger rests on an atrociously amateur sketch of Amane, surrounded by scribbled facts and dates. And inexplicably, tiny stars and balloons. And cherries.

Matsuda always did have the attention span of a pikelet. Even now, L does not approve of his blatant lack of professionalism as a detective. He does, however, approve of the cherries.

"She made her choices," L says simply.

He forgave Misa – he did that for Rem – but he'd be quite happy to never, ever see her again. He has no doubt that she would strike him down in an instant if she could, for her beloved Light. The thought makes his skin crawl.

"We should go to the Tracking Library," Naomi says softly. "We need to find out which of Light's old associates are in hell. I mean, I would presume all of them, but one shouldn't really guess at such important details."

"I know that Light himself is listed," L says quietly. "And Rem – the death god I befriended – confirmed that Miss Amane is also there."

"We could send Raye to get an exhaustive list," Naomi muses. "He could probably benefit from time away from this place."

Judging by the acidity of her tone, things are not going well between the two of them. L does not comment. It is not his place. Their private lives have nothing to do with him. He sticks carefully to the subject at hand.

"We ought to do that," he agrees. "Any prominent Kira-followers who are both dead and not in hell should be considered as suspects. However, Kira also had a lot of admirers who never did anything to actively support him. We cannot rule out the possibility of faux-Kira being a hitherto unknown person. Not yet."

"Right."

L goes back to his own stack of papers. He hates the doodles, and the offhanded comments, and the overall messiness. He doesn't want to be reminded of Matsuda. He flips through a scrawled dossier of the known rules of the death note – a document that he copied and kept for himself a long time before Matsuda's death – and three fairly decent-looking drawings of Teru Mikami, Near, and Kiyomi Takada, and a page filled entirely with the words '_I don't know that he was totally wrong_' over and over again.

L dearly wishes he'd never met Matsuda. At the same time, he would rather like the man by his side right now. Preferably with a gun.

Light can't come back. There is no escape from hell, and people in hell cannot interact with people here, in the second world.

Can they? Rem had been a little vague about the whole concept. _Hell is many different places_.

But surely not.

"Kiyomi Takada," he murmurs, pushing the more detrimental thoughts from his head. "Female, worshipped Light, and we don't yet know whether or not she went to hell."

"A candidate, certainly," Naomi agrees. "Matsuda's artistic ability obviously improved over time, because some of these drawings aren't bad. We should be able to recognise these people if they turn up. Is this Misa, when she was younger?"

L snatches the sheaf of paper from her fingers and examines it. The bored blonde staring back at him is definitely not Amane.

"Mello," he says softly. "I didn't think we had any pictures of him."

"Oh," Naomi says, voice low and sympathetic. "I'm sorry."

L tucks the sketch into his pocket. He'd never bothered to explain to Matsuda about Mail and Mello. Matsuda had always been the 'normal' one in the group, and looking back, L and the others had often tried to protect him from things that were excessively taxing or strange.

"This is of no further use to us," he says. "It belongs to Mail, now."

Naomi smiles wanly.

"I'm glad you call us by name, you know. It's a gesture of respect, really."

He has no reply to that. He doesn't do it out of respect. He does it because…because he barely noticed himself doing it. They are all evolving into their names, the more he knows them, the longer he works with them. Matsuda did it straight away. The others, he managed to keep at arm's length for a good deal longer.

That is the problem of working in a team. When you spend time with people on a regular basis, you begin to feel for them. And then you become attached to them. And then they can be used against you.

"I agree with your earlier suggestion," L muses. "We need to send Raye to Washington."

"Oh really?"

Naomi starts, and then regains her composure almost immediately, but the tension does not leave the set of her shoulders, and the wariness does not leave her eyes.

"Hello," she says briskly. "You can walk through walls, I take it?"

Rae smirks unpleasantly.

"Of course. Have you actually made progress on the case, or are you just sifting through pretty pictures, L?"

It almost hurts to look at his Shinigami. The thing is practically oozing malice. L doesn't know exactly what has happened to it, but clearly there will be consequences for him.

"These are Matsuda's notes," L says, maybe a little defensively. Brown eyes or red, Rae brings out the worst in him. "We are looking into people who were significant at the end of the original Kira case."

"Great. I've got actual information," it says scathingly. "Ryuk slipped up again. I now know that his present human is both female and Japanese."

"Death gods have their uses, don't they," Naomi says grimly. "Did you give this Ryuk any information on _us_, Shinigami?"

"Of course not," Rae says, haughtily. "I'm trying to protect people, unlike someone _else_ in this room."

_So that's your new game, is it? Disgrace me from my team-mates. Obliterate their trust in me._

_What good will that do you? None at all, as far as me using the note. Which means…_

The change between red-eyed Rae and brown-eyed Rae is centred in behaviour, not ideals. Only 'behaviour' isn't quite right, either. It is still solving cases.

"L protects a lot of people," Naomi says harshly. "You would do well to show him some respect."

"Oh," Rae says innocently. "_Oh_. Did he not tell you how he deliberately let Grace die? After all, he knew Holland's name and face long before she was murdered. Had you even thought about that, Naomi Penber?"

Naomi's eyes slide to him, and then back to the Shinigami.

"I'm not listening to your poisonous words," she declares. "I have faith in my employer."

"Oh, and there was the part where he deliberately tried to kill me. And I believe he tried to kill the night he got drunk, too, but he was thwarted by his own physical inadequacies."

"Is any of this true, L?" Naomi whispers, uncertainly.

"Yes," he admits. "I was grieving. I do not claim to be a perfect person, or even a particularly good one."

He can see the disappointment on her face. Rae knows exactly what to say. If it wants, it can topple him from his position of trust in a matter of days. And there will be nothing he can do to stop it.

It knows the worst of him.

"He lets a lot of people die, Naomi," Rae says gently. "He's not the man you think he is."

"Shut up!" she says hotly, tugging on her hair. "Go and haunt someone else!"

The Shinigami holds up its hands.

"Whoa, okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. I thought someone like you might want to know, that's all."

Naomi stays as she is, eyes closed and face scrunched, as if she's in physical pain. L reaches for her.

"Are you all right, N…Naomi?"

"Damnit, L," she grits. "When are you going to learn to start telling the truth?"

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I spent a lot of time teaching myself how to lie."

He lets her press her face into his shoulder, some semblance of comfort, and ignores the shadow hovering over both of them.

Naomi knows he tried to kill someone. Him. He does not kill. And she is his deputy. He needs her to believe in him.

It is not until much later that he realises something else.

Ryuk must have come back last night. Which means Ryuk has something to do with Rae's eyes.

* * *

Raye doesn't ask her to go with him, and she doesn't offer. She's sick of him shooting not-particularly-covert, vindictive glares in L's general direction. Clearly their boss has enough on his plate right now, without dealing with misdirected anger from his own employees.

L must have been pretty stressed, to try to kill someone. She can't…she doesn't even want to think about it. She is pretending it never happened.

Damn this evil fucking Shinigami. It has no right to their lives, and it has no right to L. People cannot simply be used as tests.

"Found something," Mail deadpans. "Kira fan-site."

"Aren't there roughly four thousand of those in existence?" Naomi asks. "Is this one special?"

"Dunno, but I've never seen one actively trying to recruit before."

"Huh. Surely faux-Kira wouldn't be so obvious."

Although L did say that she was likely neither as intelligent nor as manipulative as the original Kira. Small mercies.

She hears a door slam, a few footsteps, and then her husband storms through the room, a small brown suitcase in one hand.

"M," he says gruffly, without stopping.

"R," Mail replies distantly, and then, in a rare display of humanity, he adds. "Take care."

Raye looks at her and then looks away, his expression wretched, obviously conflicted as to what he wants to say. She gets up from her seat and follows him to the atrium.

"I agree with Mail," she says, choosing the most neutral ground she can think of. "Please be careful. The more people see your face, the more you are at risk."

"Is that why he's sending me?" Raye asks bitterly. "Because I'm the most expendable?"

"No, because you are the most charming," she replies honestly. "The librarian has a reputation for refusing to look up more than a handful of people per customer. We have a lot of requests."

"Charming. Right. And it just so happens that removing me from the picture leaves you and L here together with nothing but a psychopath and a giant skeleton to keep an eye on you."

Naomi glares at him.

"We're both quite competent adults, Raye. I doubt everything is going to fall apart just because _you_ aren't here to babysit."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," he growls. "With me gone, L can have you all to himself."

"Oh, come _on_," she says, uncertain as to whether she's more amused or insulted. "You can't be serious."

"Have you _seen_ the two of you together?" he rages, waving his arms in the air. "You practically act like his wife as it is."

She feels like she's been slapped in the face.

_This…this is what you think of me, even after all this time?_

Even after everything she's done for him? Raye is the man to whom she devoted her life, her being, her very existence.

And yes, she knows this lifestyle isn't exactly what he wants. And maybe she spends a lot of time working. And maybe most of their conversations revolve around work. And maybe she's been ignoring this sort-of illness in favour of focusing on work. And maybe she thinks about work all the time. And maybe…

Good grief. No wonder he's been feeling neglected.

"It's not him," she says shakily. "It's the job. Raye, it's the _job_!"

"I _know_ it's the damn job!" he roars. "It's _him_, and this place, and this job, and this…this _world_! I'm sick of all of it. But you _love_ it. More than you love me!"

She shakes her head, violently enough that it makes her dizzy.

"It's different. You're my _husband_."

It_ is_ different. She will protect and defend him to the death. He is the one who has her heart.

L is just…everything else. That's all.

"You know," Raye says sadly, "I wish I could believe you."

"I _love_ you," she spits, and that's not something she's said out loud for months. "Why doesn't that count for anything?"

Raye looks taken aback. He pushes a hand into his hair, visibly frustrated.

"It's not…you can't…don't _judge_ me like that!"

"Why not? You've obviously judged me."

Her husband looks like he's valiantly holding back the urge to hit something, like he's too angry and confused to express himself sufficiently with words.

"See, this is exactly what I mean. This place drives people crazy. Anyone who's not a socially inept genius goes mad after a while. Look at you and me, we're fighting over _nothing_!"

"I _know_!" she replies emphatically.

The situation quickly devolves to the two of them standing there, silently staring at each other. She realises suddenly that they're both utterly, utterly exhausted.

_This case isn't good for anyone's health. _

_And neither is that damn Shinigami_.

"This," Raye says weakly, and then shrugs. "This is stupid."

No resolution. Just an admission. They don't discuss these things, really, because they can never agree.

"Be careful out there," she says gently.

"Yeah," he says, staring at his suitcase as if he's never seen it before. "You…you too. I'll call. If I'm not. If there's time."

"Yeah," she says. "You do that."

Nothing like status quo.

* * *

The terrifying thing is, if he throws himself into a case - utterly, headfirst, just like this - then he can almost forget about Mello.

Almost.

Mail thinks he probably knew that all along. It is what's been holding him back, since the very beginning, since the day he died.

Because heaven forbid he lose sight of what is important.

As if L hasn't fucked with his life enough already, without going and bringing up Mel and what he'd _want_, as if L actually knew him. As if L actually cared about him.

And damn L if he's not _right_, if he's not making Mail deal with all of the issues that he pushed aside years ago in his bid to be as inhuman as possible. How would L like it if someone turned _his_ world on its head, huh?

Of course, the skeleton is probably pretty bothersome. Mail would be pissed if he had to deal with being haunted by the same species that had killed him in the first place.

Well, no, that's a lie. He's not actually bothered by bodyguards at all. But then, it's not _him_ that matters.

He hasn't prayed in a while. A few days, actually. He desperately hopes that Mello isn't any worse off for that.

"What are you working on?" L asks politely, from somewhere over his shoulder.

"Fuck off," Mail replies automatically, and then adds. "I think I know who's hosting the site for Kira-chick."

L tilts his head, birdlike and delicate.

"You have managed to hack into their service provider?"

"Are you kidding? This site is a virtual fortress. Clearly fake-Kira has good taste, and money, to boot."

"But so far, she has proven to lack both cunning and initiative," L says quickly. "We ought to not have too much trouble capturing her."

There is a single, miniscule, cobweb-stricken corner of Mail's brain still reserved for social observations on People Who Are Not Mello. And right now, it notes this; L is really fucking scared.

Personally, Mail thinks he has more to worry about than Kira-chick. But what does he know?

"The point is, I recognise the signature on this website. See the Ouroboros watermark with the noose overlay? A girl at fuckin' Wammy's used to use that exact design in all of her work. She was a master hacker. Better than me."

"Do you know her name?"

A lot of the Wammy's kids knew each other's real names. At the end, Mello and Near were even granted the special privilege of knowing L's true moniker.

It wasn't something Mello had shared with _him_, of course.

"Kathleen something," he mutters. "I can't remember the rest. But that's not going to be important. Her internet handle was Roper."

"The contact email address for the moderator contains the phrase 'roperportal'," L notes. "Combined with the similar watermark, there is a good chance that we are dealing with the exact same person. What did you know of her views on the original Kira?"

"Not sure. But politically, she was very anti-war. It's possible she was a supporter."

"Which means that she could be helping faux-Kira, or even be faux-Kira herself, rather than just hired help," L says thoughtfully. "How long would it take you to dredge up some useful details on this woman, M?"

"How long?" Mail snorts. "A million fuckin' years. She taught me everything I know. Wouldn't even attempt to hack her, it would be a waste of time."

"Then this information isn't really useful right now. We need to reach this Roper in person, somehow."

He touches Mail on the shoulder, and slouches off to go and eat cake, or talk to gods, or whatever it is he's doing these days. And Mail usually isn't one for bad ideas – those had always been solely Mello's domain – but he's trying to _be_ Mello right now, and he can feel a doozy coming on.

He's almost _proud_ of himself, actually.

"I could," he ventures, and then pauses to reconsider.

L turns on his toes, with ballerina-like grace, and treats him to a scrutinizing, one-eyed stare.

"You could?"

"Well, theoretically, this girl might meet up with me, if I identified myself," Mail suggests. "I mean, she was my old mentor. She doesn't know my real name, either."

"But she will, if she has the eyes," L warns. "Is there some other form of contact we can use? Could you call her?"

"We could trace a phone conversation," Mail muses. "With your equipment and Watari's skill. Huh. We could get this girl's address."

"Faux-Kira is presently killing a tremendous number of people right now," L says. "This might be the best lead we have, M. But it will require you to engage a girl you barely know in believable conversation for at least four minutes. Do you think you're up to that?"

_I dunno. Probably not. But…_

_But I'm not doing this for me._

_Or for you._

"I'll email her now," he replies, finally. "I'll arrange a phone call as soon as possible. I guess we'll find out whether I'm up to this or not."

"That's my boy," L says ruefully. "Oh. I have something for you."

Mail gazes at him steadily. If the something isn't 'cigarettes', then he isn't interested. And L ought to know that. And the small, white sheaf of paper that L pulls from his pocket doesn't look particularly cylindrical.

Maybe L wants him to roll his own?

He takes the sheet wordlessly, and a second later it floats to the floor, shock numbing his fingertips, consuming him.

_Mello_.

It's a sketch, it's just a sketch, a rough copy of the one that Linda made for the original Kira, but it's _Mello_, and it's _here_, and Mail has barely been able to _remember_.

He snatches the paper from the floor like his life depends on it.

_Those eyes_.

_I always wanted you to look at me, more than in passing, I wanted you to notice._

_But you never did._

The eyes, and the straight-edge bob that Mello used to sport, and the sarcastic, cruel little smile, and this…this picture is treasure. It is gold and diamonds. He would give his last breath for something like this.

He stares at L, throat swollen, eyes huge, unable to speak, unable to put this into words.

"You're welcome," L says warmly.

* * *

"I take it you're looking for a loophole?"

L sort of doesn't want to reply. Some childish, perverse part of him wants to believe that if he ignores red-eyed Rae for long enough, it will revert back to the Rae he _liked_. Which is selfish, of course, because Rae's brown-eyed self was becoming increasingly debilitated and damaged.

He would love to know how Ryuk managed to change his Shinigami so drastically in such a short period of time. Because despite what Rae's insistence, L suspects that those brown eyes might make another re-appearance yet. And since he plans to dispense of faux-Kira over the next few weeks, he can presume that Ryuk won't be around to help them.

"I am trying to catch a serial killer, actually," he replies, with dignity. He is re-reading the rules of the death note, and trying to focus on faux-Kira's motives, and _not_ on Matsuda's overly loopy and excessively illustrated handwriting.

He had disregarded this information for such a long time, believing that the second world would be safe from such things. And he had not bothered to look at Matsuda's notes even when Rae showed up, because he had been so absolutely convinced he would never use the note.

But now he needs to memorise this information. No-one will manipulate him with false rules and false logic.

Not again.

"Very slowly, I note," Rae says nastily. "Not too concerned, then, that innocent people might be suffering along with the guilty?"

"I do not make the same distinction that you make," L tells it, calmly. "I do not support the mass killing of the guilty, either."

"Yeah, but that's not down to your own code of ethics," the Shinigami says knowingly. "That's just you trying to make yourself seem like a better person than Light."

"I _am_ a better person than Light."

"I'm sure you once told me he was very similar to you, until he was corrupted by the note. Now you're saying that practically anyone can be corrupted by the note. How does that make him worse than you, exactly?"

"Because I have not used the note," L whispers. "Because I fear becoming what he became."

It is more than that. Whatever he might have been initially, Light became a remorseless monster, and stayed that way for the rest of his life. He killed people, he destroyed people, and he didn't give a damn.

And he did it all out of greed.

L can never forgive that.

"I get it. So this _is_ actually about you being evil, deep down. And while you think you're protecting people from another Kira, what you're doing is actually _worse_. Because you do _nothing_."

"I see. Perhaps you and I ought to refrain from conversation, unless what we have to say is directly relevant to the case."

"And you always change the subject when you're losing an argument. Have you noticed that?" Rae says infuriatingly.

"I will now ignore you unless you are divulging useful information, Shinigami."

L is painfully aware of just how immature Rae makes him. They sound like small children, fighting over a favourite toy. Instead of an adult and a god, arguing about ethics and death and the fate of the world.

He ought to be ashamed.

"Actually," Rae says, voice suddenly silky smooth. "I _do_ have some information for you. It regards the rules of the death note. All rules do not apply to all notes. Some have special conditions."

"Is this true of any of the notes belonging to the Shinigami Ryuk?" L asks warily. It is baiting him, of course. He does not expect to make any relevant conclusions based on this conversation.

"No. But it is true of the note you've got under your shirt."

"Oh," L says brightly. "Let me guess. There is a rule that if a human possesses the note and does not use it, that human will die. Hm, no. You would know that even that might not be enough to sway me. So perhaps that human would murder everyone around them, then die. Yes. Is that it?"

"I love the way you have fights all by yourself," Rae says scathingly. "No. It's the twenty-three day rule that is different. Or should I say, absent."

L carefully examines the page in front of him.

"So a death can occur more than twenty-three days after being written in the note?"

"Yes."

"Over what time period will the note function, then?" he asks, curious in spite of himself.

"Infinitely," Rae says broadly. "That note can kill anyone, at any point in the future. Quite useful for when I'm locked out of it for five years, say. But you can use that function, too."

"I will not," L says staunchly. "Why is it different?"

"Because I'm heir to the throne, genius."

"But as a Shinigami, surely you would not need so much time. Surely you'd be happy to kill someone at any point in their life, if you have already judged them deserving. Am I correct?"

"Of course," Rae tells him cheerily. "And by that very fact, I can time someone's death to an event, even if I don't know when that event will take place."

L freezes with the enormity of what Rae has just revealed.

"So," he chokes. "When you are king, you will simply write the names of every human in the world, with the condition 'when they commit a significant crime'. You won't need to worry about anything else."

"Now you're getting the picture," Rae leers. "It will be easy. Everything will be so easy once I'm king, L."

_Death should never be easy_.

L consoles himself with the thought that he _will_ not use the note, no matter what, and Rae will never be king.

Never.

No matter what.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ so, tell me, would you guys prefer more frequent, shorter updates (eg chapters like this where nothing really happens but six thousand words pass), or would you prefer me to wait a couple of weeks and give larger, more epic chapters? I've been doing the former, but am worried that such behaviour might be seen as review-whoring, which wasn't the intention.

+ thank you!

+ stuff will happen soon, I promise. and I haven't forgotten about mel, it's just that his situation is kind of stagnant right now. but he will have bits. soon!


	29. Discomfort

notes/warnings

+ swearing

+ the last few parts of this chapter could theoretically be trigger-y for abduction/molestation. one of the characters thinks about possessing one of the others. nothing is acted upon, though, and it's pretty damn mild. warning just to be safe.

* * *

**Discomfort**

Raye calls during breakfast, and the conversation is brief and awkward.

"I've confirmed Takada, Mikami, Amane, and a few others," he says gruffly. "Tell L I'm faxing through the details as we speak."

"Are you safe?" Naomi asks.

"Of course. That Minnie girl is hard work, though. She doesn't seem to want to give away too much information. You'd think people weren't _dying_ as we speak."

"Some people don't think outside their own little box, honey. From what I've heard, that woman barely ever leaves her library."

"Right, yeah," he mutters, and then pauses. "I love you."

"I love you too," she says, and hangs up.

The words don't fix anything, but they are still absolutely true.

Naomi props her chin up in her hands. In a moment, she'll go and help L investigate the possibly-genuine Kira website he's found. But right now, she just wants to sit still. She feels sick to her stomach, and weak from lack of breakfast. A lesser woman probably would have thrown up by now.

She knows this will pass. It…it doesn't even happen every day. And really, it would be silly for her to go to a doctor until she's worked out the pattern. It will take months for anyone to come to a conclusive diagnosis based on nothing but a list of sometimes-symptoms.

Besides, she distrusts doctors. She's always been proud of the deep and intimate understanding she has of her own physiological processes. And what is going on right now is simply ridiculous. She's not old enough to be constantly ill. Besides, she's pretty sure her symptoms don't match any particular disease process.

It must be the stress.

Or Kira.

"Good morning, Naomi," someone says nastily from behind her. "You're looking a little green. Does L know you're sick?"

"It's not particularly a secret," she lies, and she can feel her body tensing up, automatically preparing for a fight. Rae bothers her on levels she cannot explain.

_You_.

It holds up its hands.

"Okay, easy. I was just making conversation. Do you want a basin, or something?"

Naomi smirks, as unpleasantly as she can manage.

L might not be a murderer, but she's not sure that this _thing_ wouldn't kill of its own accord.

And it has crossed her mind that maybe Rae is the one who's slowly killing _her_.

"No, thank you. I can fight this."

_And if you are causing it, then I'll fight you_. _I am not afraid_. _And I am not weak._

"Okay, whatever you say," Rae replies. It settles on the edge of her desk, legs swinging aimlessly. Naomi chews on her lower lip and waits for it to say whatever it came here to say.

"Ever worry that you've made a huge mistake?" it asks, managing to sound both earnest and young.

Its eyes are red. They were brown before. Naomi doesn't know if the change is significant.

_Are the gods of death also the gods of hell? Is this thing going to torment L forever?_

"Never."

Rae snorts.

"You don't have to lie to me, you know. What can _I_ do to you?"

"Well, the fact that you can kill me at a second's notice comes to mind."

"I can't. L is in possession of my only note."

Naomi gapes at Rae, and then frowns and looks away. So it already knows what L has told her. This creature is too goddamned perceptive.

"Well, that's a nice thing to say, but I'll presume that it is also a falsehood," she replies lightly. "And I _wasn't_ lying, actually. I've made mistakes, but I wouldn't describe any of them as 'huge'. I tend to make good decisions."

The Shinigami smiles at her uneasily, and she is struck by the bizarre urge to attempt to kick it off the desk.

_The way I feel about you….you must be trying to hurt me. Why else would I dislike you so much without knowing a thing about you?_

"I wish you'd spend more time around L," it says ruefully. "I worry that he is going to make some very bad decisions."

"What, like using the note that you gave him?" she asks, sarcastically. "Gee, now whose fault would _that_ be?"

"Hey, I'm not human," Rae replies. "I didn't know what he'd be like. I didn't even know much about the Kira case, until four years ago. But now…"

She would dearly love to just walk out of the room. It's obviously baiting her, and she is confident that if she engages the Shinigami in further conversation, she's going to regret it.

But she's not capable of moving right now, not without dire, dizzying consequences. Ugh.

"Now _what_?" she snaps, impatiently.

Rae shifts, appearing right in front of her, crouching on the desk.

"Well, tell me something," it urges. "In a fair fight, would L have beaten that Light character?"

"Absolutely."

Rae bites at its fingers. She _hates_ the way it apes L.

"See, that's worrying me," it confides. "None of you could even catch Light. If L is using this note unscrupulously – and of course, I'm not saying he _is,_ because if he was, I wouldn't be allowed to tell you – but if he is, how will you ever catch him? He'd fool you all in a heartbeat, wouldn't he?"

"He wouldn't do it in the first place," she replies, with a conviction she does not actually possess.

How dare this…this _skeleton_ cast aspersions on her boss. It has no right to even suggest such things to her.

"I hope you're right," Rae agrees. "I'm no expert on the more complex workings of the human mind, of course. That's why I'm telling you these things. You seem to be the most emotionally intelligent person in the building. But I'm not Light's Shinigami, and I have no desire to do such damage. I just want to be king."

"Yeah, no, I'm not sure I believe any of that," Naomi replies flippantly. "This just sounds like a vendetta against L, possibly _because_ he won't use your precious death note."

Rae shrugs.

"Think what you like," it tells her. "But that is actually my point. The few times he's tried to use the note, he's acted out of extreme rage or inebriation. Sensible use of a death note is a common, normal response. L's dire and absolute refusal tells me one thing; he is afraid of himself. If that moral barricade that he's encased himself in ever becomes broken, he will be the worst monster you've ever seen."

This thing is lying. _Has_ to be lying.

"I think you just hate L," she says smoothly. "I think this conversation has no real purpose except to ostracise L from the people who love him. Which neither benefits nor detriments your goal to make him use the note. This is simply a petty fight, and I don't appreciate you involving _me_."

But she's not...she's not sure. Not one hundred percent.

"And additionally," she adds, "I would appreciate it if you did not tell the others what you have told me. I suppose I'll know whether you are genuine or attempting to start a mutiny by whether or not you comply with that request."

The Shinigami holds her gaze for a long moment, its red eyes blazing.

"Now I'm wondering if you can be trusted, Naomi Penber," it whispers, in a tone of voice that says '_well played_'.

"Oh, but you are just a poor, naïve little god of death," she says sweetly. "You know nothing of complex human emotions, remember? Why would you elect not to trust me based on such a small thing? Oh, I know why. Because you are a lying, cheating bastard, just like every other member of your species. I love my boss, and I trust my boss, and you will _not_ shake that."

"Oh," Rae replies, voice equally saccharine. "But I already _have_."

* * *

"Fuck, she's replied," Mail whines, clicking furiously. L murmurs something indistinct in response, and holds up a hand for silence. He can hear Rae and Naomi talking in the next room, but he cannot make out the individual words.

Is Rae honestly trying to turn her against him?

If it is, then there is nothing that he can do to stop it. He can only be honest. And trust in his deputy.

Investigating the faux-Kira case is ten times more terrifying without his giant skeleton-god watching his back. It's not as if he can fault the Shinigami's morality, because it is clearly still motivated to solve cases and save people. Rather, its hatred and nastiness is centred solely on _him_.

Whatever happened between Rae and Ryuk that night has revived Rae's original hatred for him. And that…that is difficult to face.

Occasionally, L wishes Rae had never reverted back to its functional, red-eyed self. And that is both selfish and horrible, because he would not wish such dire disability on _anyone, _but he misses the version of Rae that had practically become his friend.

Not that it matters, really. In under a year, all of this will be over.

What will he do then?

"Oh fuck, she's agreed," Mail wails. "L. What am I supposed to do?"

"Mm?"

L has half a mind to get up and go into the hallway, so he can hear what Rae and Naomi are actually saying. Except that Naomi would never forgive him for spying on her, if she found out. And Rae would make sure that she found out.

Then again, Naomi has forgiven him for a lot of things recently. Maybe he's overestimated the length to which she will hold a grudge.

Mail pokes him in the ribs.

"L! What am I supposed to say to this chick?"

"Oh," L says, shaking his head slowly. "You told her you were interested in faux-Kira, yes?"

"Yes, but she's not using that term. Apparently the supporters are acting like this is the real, original Kira. And they keep using phrases like 'Messiah', and 'the second coming'. It's really fuckin' scary."

"Religious extremists are generally terrifying," L replies, sagely. "That's why we need to do everything in our power to stop this person, as soon as possible."

"Okay, fine. But why are we doing this in such a roundabout way? This lady is _recruiting_. Why don't we just call the hotline on the website and try to get to faux-Kira directly?"

L rubs at his good eye. This is the part that he's been losing sleep over. This is the part he's been trying not to think about.

"Because faux-Kira is not going to be easy to convict, no matter how certain I am of her identity," he admits. "We will have the same problem as the original case. Even finding someone writing in the notebook will not be enough, because the note may be disposed of by her Shinigami before it can be proven to be a functional item, and not a replica."

"So what the fuck is the point of _any_ of this?"

"We need a confession," L replies simply. "To do that, we must first learn who this woman is. Replying directly to her is not ideal. There will be a heavy screening process, I imagine, since her earlier hiring techniques yielded nothing more than simple thugs. Part of this screening process will require the showing one's face, so that she can easily kill any traitors or undercover detectives."

"And how is Roper going to change that?"

"If we can extract the address of faux-Kira's headquarters, then I can send Rae in to identify the woman unseen."

"Oh," Mail says, in a strange, understanding tone of voice. "And then you can write down her name, and-"

"_No!_" L hisses, slamming his hands against the table.

Mail stares at him, looking vaguely wounded.

"No?"

"No!" L reiterates. "We are going to do this the _right_ way. We are not going to sink to his level!"

"Don't you mean _her_ level? This isn't a battle between you and Light any more, you know."

L isn't certain of that. Unless there comes a time when every staunch Kira-supporter is dead or in hell, L suspects he'll be fighting Light's ghost forever.

And that's okay. The ghost is still far more tolerable than the person himself.

"That is what I meant. We will show this newcomer that we have no tolerance for murderers, however misguidedly noble their motive may be. We will win, both legally and morally. We will make her confess, and then disarm her before she can kill further. And…and we will do this soon. As soon as possible. You must speak to Roper tomorrow."

Mail stares at him with a bizarre intensity that doesn't suit him and is far too reminiscent of Mello.

"But…if that's the case, once we know who this woman is, someone will _still_ have to show her their face and try and convince her that they are a supporter."

L looks away.

"Yes, that is correct," he says softly. "We need to learn enough information to allow one of us to pass her screening tests and gain her trust. The person needs to be heavily but undetectably tapped, and we need to have the means to remove the notebook from her before she can kill them. It will be quite a task, Mail."

"You're not fuckin' kidding."

L touches the back of his head, and Mail doesn't flinch the way he used to.

"Tomorrow, Mail," he insists. "We must do this tomorrow."

* * *

Kathleen Partridge twirls her braid around her forefinger and checks the clock for the eighth time in three minutes. Still a quarter of an hour to go. She hums to herself, underneath her breath, perfectly happy.

She knows that she ought to have told _them_ about this meeting. She is a disciple now, after all, and she is expected to share every aspect of her personal affairs with the other disciples and the goddess of the new world. Kimiko. Or, you know, whatever her _real_ name is. She still won't _tell_ them anything, like how she plans to bring Kira back. She just assigns them weird and random tasks and invades their privacy. And expects them to obey her every command.

Kathleen isn't exactly an ideal disciple, although she's pretty good at faking it. She doesn't _love_ Kira. Sure, it was amazing when there weren't any wars, but if global tyranny is the price of world peace, then she'll leave it, thanks very much. But this new Kira uprising has changed her life, all the same. For the past two years, she's been a genius hacker with nothing to do, nowhere to go, no plans, no goals, no dreams. Now she's a trusted ally of the second most prolific mass murderer in history. Finally, something exciting.

Another few weeks, and she ought to have enough information to actually be _useful_ to the police.

And to top it all off, the only man she's ever really felt connected to has contacted her. And yeah, he's her protégé, several years her junior, blah blah, cradle-robbing, but he's totally fair game. And she's been bored and alone for a _long_ time.

She gets up and searches her flat for bugs, one more time, just in case. Kimiko is so freaking paranoid that Kathleen wouldn't be surprised if she spontaneously started spying on her own disciples. She clearly thinks that somewhere along the line, someone is going to slip in under her radar.

Kimiko is kind of crazy, actually. It's dangerous just to be associated with her. Kathleen does like a bit of danger, now and then.

The disciples are supposed to report back on everyone who contacts them, and record every conversation they have with a non-disciple. Obviously Kimiko is convinced that someone is chasing her. The federal police, maybe. Or some anti-Kira religious extremists. Or L himself. That would be awesome.

Kathleen had been sixth-in-line for a few years, before her little sister had usurped her. Not that she minded. She never had any inclination to be a detective. All she's ever really wanted from life is entertainment, a top-of-the-range modem, and a bit of an adrenaline rush every so often. And a slightly better world, maybe. If she can manage that.

The phone rings, and she bounces back to her desk.

_He's early_.

"Matt?" she asks, excitedly.

"Roper," he replies, and there is a weary, exhausted undercurrent to his voice that she doesn't like. "It's been a long time."

"Does that honestly surprise you, considering we're both antisocial computer geeks?"

"I resent that implication."

"Resent away, goggle boy. By the way, I'm emailing you the address of an encrypted website. I want you to hack into it without knowing the username or password required."

"Right."

He doesn't ask why, of course, because he's not _stupid_. He already knows who she is, clearly, but she needs to be sure that this is the real Matt. If it is him, he'll complete the task in under a minute. The code is one she shared with him at Wammy's, many years ago. Very few other people know about it.

"I'm in. It's a website that seems to link to a bunch of stuff about armadillos. Blue background, picture of a cheesecake…sorry, a _baked_ cheesecake in the middle. Geeze, shut up!"

_No doubt about it, it's really you_.

"You're not alone, huh?" she asks warmly.

"My roommate is an idiot. And also fanatical about the correct identification of a piece of fuckin' cake."

"You know, we were always trained to believe that loving any form of junk food was an admirable trait," she grins. "But I'm really not so sure. Anyway, to what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?"

Matt hesitates.

"Uh, you read my email, right?"

"You said you were interested in Kira," she replies dismissively. "Isn't everyone? What made you contact _me_?"

Matt makes a loud, breathy noise that is probably supposed to be a laugh. He sounds fucked, and not in a good way. Something has happened to him. Something bad. Back at Wammy's, nothing _ever_ bothered him. Matt had been unshakeable.

Well, except when that hot, blonde kid went off on his own. Those had been bad times. Even she hadn't been able to miss Matt's aching, four-year melancholy.

And it's not as if she and Matt were ever really friends. She had simply been the one to train him. Wammy's kids tended to be emotionally retarded; their interactions purely businesslike and academic. Matt had been one of the few who had actually managed to hold down an amicable relationship with one of his fellow orphans.

She'd always admired him for that.

And anyway, they're both adults now. There aren't any attendees or strict nurses breathing down their necks. Surely she and Matt can manage to get _along_.

Unless, of course, he disappoints her, right here and now. Because if he's interested in _supporting_ Kira, then. Well. Then she wants nothing to do with him, really. She's already got enough religious crazies in her life.

_Come on, little Matt. Impress me._

"I've been a fan for a few years now," he tells her carefully.

_Damn_.

Evidently he notices her silence, because he continues awkwardly.

"I, um. I recognised your watermark on the recruiting website. I've never _actively_ worshipped Kira, but it's obvious that you do, and there's going to be another uprising, isn't there? I want to help. I'm sick of this fucked-up world."

"I see," she replies, flatly.

_What happened, Matt? Did something happen to Mello again? Is that why you're so jaded? Kira won't help. You, of all people, should know that._

"So, what do you think?" he asks, hopefully. "You're an insider, right? What can I do to help this new incarnation of Kira? I want to join the ranks."

_Ugh_.

"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you," she tells him, abruptly. "You'll need to apply through the website and go through the regular channels. Nothing else will work."

"But-"

"And I'm afraid I have to go, now. Good luck, little Matt."

Kathleen disconnects with a loud click, and slumps forward in her seat.

She is going to be _so_ upset if she has to fight him in the end.

* * *

Mail promptly drops the phone, buries his head in his hands and hunches over the desk, shaking.

"God, I hate that name," he mutters. "I fuckin'…it's not my _name_. Not any more. Not since."

L runs his fingertips over Mail's back.

"She doesn't know any better," he says gently. "She doesn't know you by any other name. And you did well. We have identified Roper's address without alerting her to our intentions."

Mail shudders a few more times, and then peeks through his fingers at his employer.

"You'll bring her in for questioning now, right?"

"Correct. You have done well. We ought to be able to stop faux-Kira quite soon."

There's a faint uncertainty to L's voice that sends chills down Mail's spine. He forces himself to sit up straight and open his eyes properly. This isn't what Mello would want from him, after all.

How much longer can he live his life just based on what Mello would have done? He wants to crumble and grieve and pray and break. This is _exhausting_. And kind of stupid.

"Takada is in hell, right?" he demands. "That man checked. She's definitely in hell. She's definitely _suffering_."

"I promise," L says heavily. "I promise."

Mail touches the left pocket of his filthy black jeans. He can feel the sketch, folded and safe, secure and close to him.

_Mello_.

"Good," he says thickly, and hides his eyes again.

* * *

Jas is tired. Not physically - not even mentally - but emotionally. Sometimes, she holds nothing but loathing for her job. Sometimes she despises humans, and their faults and flaws, and their complications, and their innate _evil_.

Sometimes she wants to throw a tantrum, to show the world and all of its tiny, insignificant creatures just what she truly is. Sometimes she wants to announce that she is justice, that she is the one they all ought to fear, that she is the ultimate judge.

Sometimes, she feels like she's earned the ability to override her own safeguards. To declare every human soul as good or evil once and for all, without any chance for re-assessment or redemption. She wants to be the head of a religion. She wants to be absolute. She wants.

But that is the difference, is it not, between good and evil? Moderation. Wanting, and still not taking. Acknowledgement of personal flaws. The tiny detail that becomes a significant crack that becomes a mighty chasm. If she seeks moderation and modesty, then she can continue to be good. If she submits to her own constant power-hunger, then she will fall and become voracious and monstrous.

There are two humans that depict this difference beautifully, and they both started out very much the same. And Lawliet, for all his angst and sadness and regret, is the one that she must continue to emulate.

She would never forgive herself if she became the other.

But now, no, this is bad. This is very bad. L is too much, too good. And he is starting to have his doubts, possibly even starting to suspect her. And no human should be able to comprehend her existence, not without being explicitly informed. And there is no way that she can hide _her _from him. L is heavily involved with the faux-Kira case. He will _know_, by the end, that hell is more fluid than he expected. That outcome is now inescapable. She has erred, perhaps, and weaved too many hells around one man.

She will have to work extra hard to keep him blind to her movements, to keep him from becoming too knowledgeable. She must protect him, after all. He has almost become her mascot.

But there are others.

_No Shinigami should ever fall for a human_.

She is the one who makes the rules, after all. And she carries such a great burden, and she works so much harder than the others. She should be allowed to take liberties, every so often. She never has before. She's never fallen for a human before.

She must be owed some sort of reward.

Surely.

* * *

_Sometimes, it feels like you're working a case. _

_Which is laughable enough on its own, really. You, working a case. You can barely be trusted to mind a child for a few hours, or to guard one exit of a mildly-important building. Near won't even let you keep watch over the Jeevas' house any more, because he says you'll do more harm than good._

_Near. He's considered to be second only to L. What he says, goes. He shines where you rusted and burned and failed. Everyone respects him. Everyone loves him. You are some kind of terrible person, that you can't love him too._

_But anyway, sometimes you feel like you're working a case. A psychotic little internal case. The mystery of why Sometimes Nothing Seems To Make A Lot Of Sense. Like the way you'll occasionally look at the sky, and convince yourself you can see the seams. Like the way you overanalyse the kooky things Jasmine says to you. _

_Like the way you kid yourself – stupidly – that maybe this can't possibly be real because, well, because you want a better life. Because you want to be owed a better life. Because you want to live in a little fantasy dream-land where nobody gets hurt and nobody dies and people actually like you and read the books you write. Where L doesn't look at you with loathing. Where your friendship with Matt is based on companionship, and not pity. Where you don't feel ashamed every second of your life._

_You lean back against the grimy brickwork and stare upwards. Your scar hurts. You and Dwayne are supposed to be keeping an eye on this place. It's just a storage facility for Wammy's supplies. Nothing top secret or important._

_Wammy wouldn't give you the time of day if his life depended on it. Near told you that he used to have such high hopes for you, when you were a child. _

_You have become such a bitter disappointment. _

_Nothing is happening. Dwayne keeps radioing you to talk about how he's setting you up on another date with his sister. You already know what the outcome will be. He'll browbeat you into agreeing, and then you just won't turn up. It's pointless. Your heart is spent. You cannot change that._

_Besides, you're pretty sure his sister has a thing for Rester. Which is just plain weird._

_You take out your wallet, and it's as empty as usual. Your credit cards are all past their maximum limit, and you barely have enough change to get a bar of chocolate on the way home. You really wish you had more willpower. Then you might be able to sort your life out._

_Sometimes, it feels like you're being sabotaged. By someone else. Near said that's because you don't want to own up to your own cravings, so you blame some invisible gremlins._

_You keep a photograph of Gemma in your wallet. It was taken a few weeks ago, a gift to you from Matt and Jasmine. In the picture, she's asleep on the sofa, her hair pulled into two tiny pigtails, her pink-striped dress bunched up underneath her. She has one hand wrapped around a gaming console, and you already know she's going to be just like her father._

_You really thought, when Jasmine first announced her pregnancy, that you'd hate the baby. That you'd hate this tiny, innocent being who was the ultimate proof that Matt was in love with someone else, made a home with someone else._

_But you can't hate her. There's too much of him in her._

_The wind is blowing, it's almost midnight, and Gemma's face is endlessly peaceful. You aren't allowed to babysit much any more. Near's orders. Gotta keep people safe, after all._

_You have a new hobby, too. You're trying to document what you know of the Kira case, so that people can read about it once it's over. But every time you sit down to pen some cold, hard, informative facts, you wind up writing mini-novels about death and tragedy and broken hearts instead._

_You still miss those roses. You had to throw out the last one yesterday, because it was going mouldy. You still feel like they brought you closer to Matt, somehow. Which is stupid, because it was Jasmine who gave them to you._

_But whatever. You're stupid. That's not fucking news._

_You rest your head against the wall and close your eyes, just for a moment. You're fat, incompetent, and idiotic. No one is really going to be surprised if you fall asleep on the job._

_

* * *

_

As soon as he loses consciousness, Jas lets the world fade to swirly grey nothingness, vague blurs marking where people and buildings had been, so that she can put everything back the way it should be when he wakes.

Mello is fairly tall, less than an inch short of Lawliet and Jeevas in height. But right now, asleep and huddled, he looks tiny and vulnerable. His oversized blue shirt swallows most of his arms, and his pants are practically falling off his hips.

This place is nothingness. He is suspended in nothingness. Outside his own mind, of course, he is unchanged. His silky blonde hair grazes his chin and shoulders.

She does not own those in hell, any more than a warden owns his prisoners. Touching him without his knowledge is nothing short of molestation. And _that_ is not a part of his designated hell.

But he'll never know. And she's never been in love before. And what is she _supposed_ to do? She can't spontaneously let him go. What if he doesn't redeem himself? What will she do? Will she take him for herself, then? Will she give him back to Mail, anyway, breaking her own cardinal rule?

And speaking of that rule, if she's going to break it for Mello, she should break it for _that one,_ too. He should not be allowed to save himself. He should not be capable of saving himself. If he does, can she presume he has cheated?

Isn't it her job to protect the human world from evil?

Anyway, she did not come here to dwell on distasteful humans. She sits down next to Mello, tilts her head to one side, and listens to him breathe. He is so alone right now, the only living thing in his world. No wonder he gets suspicious.

Jas catches a strand of his hair between two fingers, and examines it. It looks like spun gold, healthy even after all this time. He's classic-beautiful, like an olden-day princess. A princess locked in an impenetrable tower.

Well, that would make her the only prince able to save him then, wouldn't it? And it's not as if Mail is any more _deserving_ than she is. She might not be able to change a heart, but she can change a mind. She could make Mello _think_ he loves her, even if he doesn't.

She touches his wrist, feeling the steady pulse there. To take Mello for herself would be to jump to the other side of that chasm. To become the other one. It is not damnable to have such thoughts, only to act upon them.

"I can't help you, you know," she tells him. "You'll have to save yourself, like all the others. You see, what I do, it can't be easy. I knew that all along, but your mentor put it perfectly into words."

She picks up his hand and presses her lips to the back of it. A taste, a liberty, something she's earned.

No further.

She leaves without another word, both renewed and disgusted with herself.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ another 5k update in which NOTHING HAPPENS. yay, spades, we'll never get tired of this!

+ I am running out of nouns to use for chapter names. I wish I was kidding.

+ thank you, all of you.


	30. Stumbling

notes/warnings

+ swearing

+ short chapter is short

* * *

**Stumbling**

Acquiring Roper turns out to be relatively easy, as the woman seems to lack anything beyond the most basic knowledge of building security. Watari ties her up in the designated interrogation room, and L goes about his research in the adjoining observation room. Raye returns before Roper wakes, irritable and unpleasant from the delay in his flight.

Slowly, insidiously, the effects of a new Kira are appearing. Interest rates are going up. Insurance companies are becoming ridiculously picky. And excessive anti-terrorist mechanisms are being put into place in every airport and dock.

More and more people are working it out. More and more criminals are dying. L has a few days, at most, before this case explodes into rampant panic and genocide.

Mail is emotionally exhausted, the Penbers are regarding each other with tired resignation, Raye keeps scowling at him, and his Shinigami is constantly attempting to undermine him out of what appears to be nothing more than petty spite.

Sometimes, he thinks he'd be better off alone.

Roper stirs under her blindfold, and L reaches for the intercom.

"What the fuck is going on?" she murmurs, and then appears to consider her situation. "Oh. Right. Kimiko, is this _your_ doing?"

L tilts his head.

"Who is Kimiko?" he asks.

Roper laughs.

"Well, if this is some sort of loyalty test, I guess I've already failed, right? I'm going to have to hope and presume that you're _not_ her. Kimiko is the name of a woman who is accumulating disciples of Kira. I believe she may also be responsible for the enormous surge in heart attacks in convicted criminals, but I've got no evidence of that."

_Interesting_.

"Is this the woman for whom you designed the website."

"Ah," Roper says knowingly. "This is down to Matt, then?"

"Just answer the question."

"Yup, I'm responsible for the recruiting website. Are you for or against Kira, sir?"

"I could ask you the same question," he says, with a little admiration. She's really not frightened at all.

"You could. Since Matt is probably working for you, and he is pro-Kira, I can presume that I'm about to die for saying this, but I'm a double agent. I wanted to get close to Kimiko and then go to the police when I had enough evidence. She sought me out, looking for me to donate some of my time and talent, and I couldn't resist the opportunity."

"Fuck," Mail utters. "She's…she's on _our _side."

"Perhaps," L replies. "I am starting to like this Roper."

"Why don't you just admit that you're disappointed you don't get to torture anyone," Rae says vindictively. "Or better yet, you could just torture her anyway. That would make you feel better, right, L?"

"Your sudden disgust of my character is unnerving," L tells it softly. "What on earth have I done to deserve it?"

"The death toll gets higher and higher," Rae points out. "What have you done to try and combat that?"

"Hey, Mr Kidnapper, what happened to you?" Roper asks loudly. "Are you about to execute me? I'd like a bit of warning. Make my peace, and all that."

"My apologies," L says into the intercom. "Matt and I are on the same side of this battle, one which we apparently share with you?"

"He's _against_ Kira?" Roper asks, grinning a little. "Ha! I'm glad."

"We presumed he would need to lie in such a way to earn your trust," L explains. "Tell me what you know, Roper."

"You should have left it a bit longer," she replies, unhappily. "Not much. Proving yourself as a disciple is gruelling, though. I can walk you through the process. She's trying to reinstate the original Kira, but I don't know how. But for my own peace of mind, I _did_ happen to hack into this woman's personal files and find the address of her headquarters. Thing is, the place is going to be impenetrable. You'd have no way of checking without risking someone's life. Oh, hey, _I_ wouldn't mind going in there for you. I've already been inducted."

"That won't be necessary at this stage," L tells her softly. He likes this girl, too. Another excellent protégé. He has no idea how Watari selected these children, but he obviously did a thorough and thoughtful job of it.

"Just get the damn address," Rae hisses. "This is taking far too long as it is."

"But please tell me where this woman can be found," L continues, diligently.

"With pleasure," Roper replies. "It's number seventeen, Baker Street. Heh. Pretty funny, when you think about it."

"I didn't even know there _was_ a real Baker Street," Mail mutters.

L strikes a few keys on his computer and examines the resulting map.

"That building has been condemned," he tells Roper. "Are you certain of this?"

"Look, this lady isn't stupid," the girl assures him. "There's a basement level to that building. According to some of the other disciples, she's done the place up like palace. She's really touched in the head. You need to be careful."

"I understand," L says, and turns to his Shinigami. "I don't need to remind you not to be seen, do I?"

"Ryuk will see me," Rae replies. "But he's not allowed to tell his mistress of my presence."

"Good. Then go."

"Oh, I'm going, don't worry."

Rae flounces out of the room without another word.

"We have an agent who can escape detection," L tells Roper. "We will find out what we can about this location."

"Swell. Hey, do you mind letting me down from here? My arms are tingling, and my legs have gone to sleep. It's not nice."

L hesitates.

"You have seen this Kimiko woman? Face to face?"

"Yes."

"Then I would ask you to tolerate your conditions for a little longer, please. Another few hours, maximum."

If Kimiko really _is_ faux-Kira, then she'll have the eyes. And if she's seen Roper's face, then there is a chance that she could control the girl, and use her against them. He absolutely cannot free Roper as long as she remains within close proximity to this building.

But her suggestion has considerable merit. If he sends Roper back to faux-Kira's side, then he does not have to send a member of his team. No other lives need be put at risk. She can run surveillance for them, _she_ can convince this Kira to confess, she can win on their behalf.

He hopes Rae returns soon. He cannot make any final decisions on their next course of action until Roper's information has been confirmed. By the same token, they cannot detain the girl for much longer. Faux-Kira will notice if a supporter has been absent without reason for too long.

"Mail," he says calmly. "Can we trust this woman?"

"I dunno. Probably. And she hasn't seen anyone's face here, and she doesn't know where we are, so she can't actually betray us."

"True," L muses. "If faux-Kira's lodgings truly are impenetrable, then it will be impossible for us to bug the place. We can place fairly invisible audio taps on a person, I believe, with Watari's latest technology, but visual will be lacking. Which means we'll need a verbal confession, plus the statement of the person present."

"Roper, right?" Mail asks. "You're going to use her."

"I have raised you well," L tells him, indulgently.

* * *

Naomi takes some time for herself. She showers and washes her hair and studiously avoids her husband and makes herself tea. An hour ticks past, and she goes to find her boss, ignoring Raye's wounded expression.

She cannot stop thinking about L's Shinigami, and not just for the obvious reasons. Now that she's had time to mull it over, the creature almost seems to have had a complete attitude reassignmentover time. It was desperate to save L's life the day they first met it, but now it treats him with nothing but disdain and spite.

Something is not right.

She has half a mind to discuss her thoughts with L. But then she finds him hunched over his desk, eye wide and glazed in the darkness, scrolling through a list of dead criminals. He looks robotic, almost, barely human. He looks wrung out and empty.

"L," she says softly, almost reluctant to disturb him. "You should take a nap, or something."

"I cannot sleep," L tells her. "People are dying."

Naomi senses a presence behind her, and is unsurprised to find Rae standing next to her, bladed and terrible, its eyes trained on the back of L's head like he is the only thing in the world.

She blinks. Those eyes are the colour of rust.

_Interesting_.

"You're back," she says, with false enthusiasm, and Rae frowns and shakes its head. And she _sees_ the change, sees the way its eyes brighten and shift back to their usual blood-red state.

"Yeah," it replies, distractedly. "L. Eat some sugar or something. There is weird shit going down, you can't be half asleep."

"Is that the technical term for it?" L asks, with a worn out little smile. The Shinigami sneers at him and L wilts, all good humour gone.

Rae either doesn't notice, or pretends not too, instead launching straight into its report on faux-Kira's apparent lodgings.

"Okay. The place exists, including a fully-furnished, liveable basement level, just as Roper said. And…I can tell you right now that this woman is Kiyomi Takada."

"That makes no sense at all," L says immediately. "We know Takada is in hell."

"Well, it's either her, or a damn good doppelganger."

Naomi raises one eyebrow.

"I thought you could see someone's name hovering over their head. What happened, Shinigami?"

"Are your eyes damaged again?" L asks, voice low and concerned. "Rae? They are still completely red. Did something-"

"_No_. The problem definitely isn't me this time," Rae says, with a smarmy sort of confidence that makes Naomi want to kick the thing in the face. "It's her. Her name and numbers are in…code, or something. Some other language. I can't read it."

"How curious," L says thoughtfully. "Do you know what that means?"

"No idea. Never seen it before."

"But it means that we can't be sure we're dealing with the real Takada," Naomi points out. "In fact, we ought to be sure that we're _not_, since we know Takada is incapacitated. Do we know if she ever had sisters, or children, or anything? Anyone that could resemble her?"

"Why would you even say that she is Takada, if you cannot read her name?" L enquires. "Have you met the woman before, Rae?"

"You do realise gods of death aren't actually completely immune to human media, right?" Rae tells him scathingly. "I've been in the first world. Takada was _famous_. Most Shinigami can recognise a famous human based solely on their face."

"I cannot accept that she is Takada," L says firmly. "That would mean accepting that those in hell can also enter this reality, which would mean…"

Which would mean Light could show up. At any moment, since his henchmen are already starting to appear here. And dear god, now L isn't going to sleep ever again.

"Which would mean Mello would have come back to you already," Naomi reminds him. "Which he hasn't, so that can't be true."

"Every person has a different hell," L mutters. "Rem. Rem's hell was here. It is possible for some to come here, and others to be restricted. But why? Who decides this?"

"Huh?"

He's babbling.

"Rae?"

"Mm?"

The Shinigami treats L with such exaggerated dislike as to be almost comical.

As if it's trying to _prove_ something.

"What else have you learned?"

"She is operating under the alias 'Kimiko', which we already suspected. Roper's estimation was incorrect, the place is by no means impenetrable, but the entire house is under constant and thorough camera surveillance, with absolutely no blind spots. She has a lot of contact with other people, most of whom seem to operate elsewhere. I can tell you the names of the handful of security guards that live with her."

"Their function would be to monitor the area, I imagine," L says thoughtfully. "Anyone entering the premises is at faux-Kira's mercy as soon as they're caught on camera. The extra help would only be necessary if someone was masked or hooded, in which case they'd probably be shot on sight, without question."

"That makes sense," Naomi intones.

"And on top of that, there is absolutely no evidence," Rae tells them. "She has what looks like either a death note, or a replica, but I can't tell you more than that. You're either going to have to get a confession out of her, or kill her. _And_, of course, you're not going to use the simple method. _That_ wouldn't put enough lives at risk, right?"

"There's a lady out there killing criminals, a dozen an hour, and you're insinuating that _L_ is the bad guy here?" Naomi asks curtly.

Rae smiles at her secretively, reminding her of their earlier conversation.

_Sensible use of a death note is a common, normal response._

But why would it say that? It seems like Rae is criticising L no matter what he does, looking for any opportunity to insinuate his immorality, regardless of whatever ethical code it actually adheres too. She cannot even decide whether it supports Kira's philosophy or not. It seems to condemn L equally for his lack of killing, and the few incidents where he almost used the note.

The thought makes her inexplicably happy.

_You're clutching at straws, aren't you_, she thinks. _I'm not sure why, or what your goal is, but you're desperate to hate L for any reason at all._

"Using the note also leaves this woman's inevitable successors free to take over from her," L says calmly. "We need to do this publicly."

"Unless you have her send you the death note before she dies."

"Certainly, if we can be convinced that Ryuk won't interfere any further. Since he was originally Light's Shinigami, we can presume that he may still hold some feelings for the man. Ryuk's selection of a woman like Kimiko as the new death note owner suggests that he may deliberately be trying to rescue the original Kira."

"That's ridiculous. Death gods don't operate like that."

"You said Ryuk sought entertainment. Surely Light was _very_ entertaining."

"So we're operating under the possibility that people can be saved from _hell_?" Naomi asks, with disbelief.

"We are operating under the assumption that we cannot be certain that we are safe from those in hell," L corrects. "We must be as careful as possible."

"So one of us is going to have to go through the initiation that Roper outlined," Naomi says unhappily. "That's not good, L. I mean, none of us are fools. I'm sure we can all pledge our love to Kira and give away believable names and addresses and vulnerable family members and all of that, but the final test?"

"You have to shoot an unknown person on sight," Rae says smugly. "On command, right in the heart, to prove your loyalty to the cause. How is that any better than using the note, L?"

"Not if we can use Roper. She's already been initiated."

"Oh. Right. Can we trust that girl?" Naomi asks.

"I don't know," L replies softly. "But she is in too useful a position to waste. Naomi, please inform your husband of what we have learned, and what we suspect. Under no circumstances is anyone to tell Mail. As far as he is concerned, Kimiko is a hitherto unknown worshipper of Kira."

"Understood," she replies, dutifully.

* * *

L isn't _evil_, per se, he is simply morally pathetic. He's so scared of making any actual _decisions_ that he winds up stumbling over his own bare toes, and getting a lot of innocent people killed while he agonises over what he ought to do.

He's deplorable, but not beyond repair. He has done good things in the past, surprisingly. Turning in his mother. Putting his life at risk to save people. Taking on world famous serial killers. It's almost _cute_, how hard he tries.

And still he fails. Incompetency is as unforgivable as outright wickedness. And L will never change.

He's as bad as that _boy_, wide-eyed and brimming with false sanctimony.

Never mind, now.

_I did it before and I'll do it again._

_Soon._

_

* * *

_

"So you struggled to access this woman's address," Mail muses, genuinely curious, for once. "Interesting. She found a hacker better than you?"

"There are at least two that I know of," Roper tells him comfortably. "And hey, maybe three, if you've gotten your act together."

"Not really, no. Sorry to disappoint you."

"Who says I want competition?" she asks, grinning. "It's all good. Who are you working with, anyway? Who was the other guy?"

It strikes Mail suddenly that any other Wammy's kid would be envious of his present closeness to L.

"A detective," he says vaguely. "He's pretty good, I guess. Keeps me busy."

"I bet Wammy would be proud to hear you're working with a detective," Roper comments. "What's his name?"

"You know, the more questions you ask, the more suspicious we're going to be, right?"

"Ack, right. Sorry."

Mail blows his fringe out of his eyes. He had forgotten just how ditzy Roper could be. It's amazing that Kimiko - or whoever - hasn't just killed her out of annoyance. But then, she's a really damn good hacker. And apparently quite content to hang blindfolded and restrained in the interrogation room and converse with someone who's practically a stranger via intercom, like everything is totally normal and they're going to catch up over coffee later.

Mail really doesn't understand other human beings.

"It's okay," he says awkwardly.

The door behind him creaks slightly, and that man comes into the room.

"M," he says gruffly.

"R," Mail returns.

"That _thing_ is back," he continues distastefully. "It's talking to Naomi and L as we speak. Apparently, Roper's information checks out. The plan is to return her to her home, and use her to spy on Kimiko."

"Do we know who Kimiko is?"

"Nothing conclusive. L doesn't think that she's any of Light's old associates."

"Thank fuck for that," Mail says, although he doesn't quite mean it. Somewhere, deep down, he wants this woman to be Takada. He wants Takada to be here, living and breathing and scrabbling for her false god.

Because if she were here, then he could kill her. He could put a bullet through her heart, and see the light die from her eyes, and send her straight back to hell, and finally, finally fucking _do_ something. The investigation wouldn't matter any more. It wouldn't matter if he wound up in jail. It wouldn't matter if he wound up in hell. To kill Kiyomi Takada would be worth every second of an eternity of torture.

When he looks down, he has Mello's picture in his hand. He doesn't even remember reaching for it. That man – Raye, or something – glances over his shoulder with vague interest.

"He's cute," he offers. "He looks like a girl, though."

"He was amazing," Mail says shakily. "It's such…such a fuckin' _waste_!"

"Hey, easy. No hysterics in the observation room," Raye-thingy says, grabbing his shoulder.

"Oh, _shut up_," Mail sneers.

Raye is just brimming with condescending bullshit, all the fuckin' time, and Mail _hates_ it. And he _knows_ that no one else understands the enormity of what losing Mello means, or the fact that he was roughly the entirety of Mail's world, or the fact that Mail still doesn't know how that scar would have felt under his fingers, rough and dangerous and _gone_.

How long does he have to go on like this? He cannot go on dying and living for all eternity, surely?

"I thought of something else!" Roper calls abruptly, and Mail reaches for the intercom.

"What is it?"

"Demographics of the disciples are pretty skewed," she tells him quickly. "As far as I know, about eighty percent of Kimiko's recruits are female."

"Seriously?" Raye asks. "Any particular reason?"

"She seems to be frightened of someone," Roper says thoughtfully. "I dunno. But I once overhead her talking about some mafia guy, and it sounded as if she thought he was after her, or something. If I didn't know better, I'd say she'd been abused."

"If that's true, then this is a horribly sad situation," Raye says tiredly. "Battered woman turns to Kira in an attempt to improve her life."

"And winds up ruining everyone else's life," Mail adds. "Huh. That _does_ suck."

"Anyway, we shouldn't dwell on things like that," Roper continues. "This isn't an interrogation session any more, right? Let's talk about stupid stuff. What have you done since you died? You can't have just worked for the same detective guy _all_ your life, right?"

"Pretty much, yes," Mail replies. He's getting heartily sick of her cheery demeanour.

"Really? That's it? Huh. How boring."

"Boring?" Mail asks incredulously.

"Well, yeah. I mean, even _I've _done one or two interesting things in my time. I've been travelling, Matt-"

The simple syllable floors him, punches a damn hole clean through his mind like an angry freight train, reeking of _Mello_ and _eternity_.

Death ought to be eternal. Dying ought to have been enough.

"I've seen the world," Roper continues, oblivious to his suffering. "I wound up working as a game designer in China for a year. Hooked up with a boy called Ludo. Don't know his real name, but _god_ he was hot. He had this amazing tongue-"

"_Roper_," Mail snarls. "That's enough."

But he's almost grateful for the distraction.

"Whoops," she says cheerfully. "Hey, it's not like you're young and innocent any more. Anyway, how about you? Honestly, I kinda figured you'd be married by now."

Mail just about chokes on his own saliva. Raye thumps him on the back.

"Why the _fuck_ would you think that?" he demands viciously.

He's not exactly marriage fuckin' material.

Even Roper seems to recognise the venom in his voice, and seems genuinely taken aback.

"I didn't mean to upset you," she says gently. "I just, you know. Wammy's was an emotional sinkhole. And yet you practically had a significant other. I just figured…"

Mail slams his hands against the desk so hard he feels something _crack_ in his left palm. He's so angry and confused that he doesn't know _what_ he wants to say.

"_Fuck_ you," he says into the intercom. "How dare you say that."

"Hey," she sputters. "I didn't…I…"

But he's gone, he's fucking _out_ of here. He can't handle this shit, and he can't handle being reminded of his childhood, and he can't handle the slightly-crumpled picture in his hand, and he certainly can't handle people casting aspersions on Mello. As if he'd ever stoop so low as to be with someone like _Mail_.

As if. As if.

He stomps savagely to the door, his head spinning.

"I have a message for you," Roper says, loudly. "Are you listening, L?"

"L?" Raye asks, bewildered. "What? Hold on a second, M. I thought she didn't know who we worked for."

"I don't fuckin' _care_!"

"No, seriously," Raye insists. "Does…does her expression look strange to you?"

"I dunno!" Mail snaps, whirling on his heel to shoot his colleague a final, wrathful glare. "She always looks spaced out. Leave me _alone_!"

"Again, I have a message for you," Roper repeats. "L. Are you listening? This is not a game. You _will_ lose."

Raye already has his phone out, frantically dialling L. He _always_ panics too soon, the stupid bastard.

"I think you need to hear this," he gabbles. "Roper's gone weird."

"People are going to keep dying, L," the girl continues, eyes blank, voice low and ethereal. "Perhaps even people who do not deserve to die. And they are suffering because _you_ refuse to surrender."

Okay, so maybe it _isn't_ too soon to panic.

"It's Kimiko," Mail says, softly, awed. "She's controlling her. Which means. Fuck. _Roper_."

He has the presence of mind to hit the 'record' button on the control panel. There might be clues in the message. Maybe.

"The only thing I really want is you," Roper says distantly. "If you hand yourself over now, you will save a lot of lives. That's what you like to do, isn't it?"

"Dear god," L murmurs, voice emanating from the phone still clutched in Raye's hand.

"If you take yourself back to this dear little girl's house, you will find that it is now under thorough camera surveillance. You may go there if you wish to surrender, at any time. I have a learned friend who will inform me if it is the real you. Anyone you send on your behalf will be immediately killed. .

"That must be her _blasted_ Shinigami," Raye grits. "_Damn _those things!"

"But if you're feeling hesitant, I just want you to know that I'm about to up the ante," Roper drones. "You have fifteen days left, during which I will remain at my current killing rate. After that, the number of criminals killed per day will double. And then triple. Quadruple. The population may never recover. And you don't want that, do you, L?"

L and that Naomi lady burst into the room, and Mail sees the Shinigami appear in the interrogation room proper, next to Roper's dangling form.

"Is there anything we can do?" the lady asks frantically.

"No," L says softly, shuffling sadly over to the desk.

"You don't want another life on your hands, I'm sure," Roper says, with an uncharacteristically feral smirk.

And then she shudders, just once, as if electrified, and sags.

"You took too long, L," the skeleton announces accusingly. "She is dead."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ I am stuck, again. no matter what I do, I can't seem to get the next chapter into shape. I apologise for this, and I apologise if I can't make my weekly update next sunday.

+ thank you so much for reading.


	31. Lies

notes/warnings

+ swearing.

+ general bad writing and tenuous plotting skills.

* * *

**Lies**

"Er, I may be missing something here," Ryuk says helpfully, "but wasn't that girl on _your_ side?"

Takada rolls her eyes.

"It was necessary for her to die," she informs him coldly. "Since you are supposedly a god yourself, I thought you would understand the concept of 'necessary sacrifice'."

"Yeah, okay, maybe. But would _Light_ really want you to kill all of these people? I thought he only advocated killing _bad_ people," Ryuk says thoughtfully, stretching across the edge of her expensive desk. "Of course, I guess that doesn't really explain why he tried to kill L."

"He killed L because those who stand in the way of true justice _are_ bad, by definition," she tells him curtly. "Even if they have done nothing else wrong, that is bad enough. As for Kathleen, she didn't report her whereabouts to me. A neighbour said they saw an unfamiliar car in the area near her home a few hours ago. That is very suspicious. Either she is a traitor and deserved death, or L captured her, in which case she would have been glad to die to protect her god."

"How do you know L got her, anyway?" he asks. "Anyone could have taken her. Your message might have been given in vain. And it took you _so long_ to write that little speech out. What a waste."

"Whoever received it will deliver it to him," she says with a smile. "They're all on the same side, these heathens. They are all weak, rallying behind the one strong man they could find. And even he has already been beaten."

"Whatever you say," Ryuk replies. He's actually starting to feel a little uncomfortable about this whole thing. Humans are interesting, and have lots of very useful resources – like, for example, oh, apples – but some of them can really go crazy with power.

Perhaps that should have occurred to him earlier.

Anyway, he shouldn't worry about Takada. She's scripted. There are a limited number of possible outcomes, all sanctioned by the queen. It won't be his responsibility.

And it's not like he'd bend the rules, either. Not for her. Takada is _boring_. Emma is his only real, true, human friend. She wants to make him powerful, keep him entertained for the rest of _eternity_.

Heh, maybe he should make a joke to Rae about this. He'll take the mother, and Rae can have the son, and _everyone_ will be happy. Two matching sets of Shinigami and humans, having monstrous amounts of fun.

Oh wait. He's not allowed to tell Rae anything. Can't forget about that.

"Are you _really_ going to kill so many people, if he doesn't comply?" he asks glibly. "It seems like such a waste."

"You are wrong," Takada replies smugly. "Quite wrong. In the first world, we thought that all humans – good and evil – simply became nothing when they died. Now, we know that those who are evil are punished and removed from society forever."

Jas told her? Interesting. He can't keep track of what Jas tells her charges. Whether they know about hell, or are aware of the fact that they're in hell, or even whether they know that they're dead. The smarter they are, the more she needs to lie. She cannot fool an intelligent human, not easily. Takada must not be overly bright, if she's been told the truth.

Heh.

"So what I do – what _Kira_ will do – is simply a purification process. More and more criminals will be killed, a proportion of those will be sent to hell, and eventually we will have a perfect world, full of good people, for all eternity."

She pivots in her chair and regards him with unnerving intensity.

"Is there a god of hell, Ryuk? I'd quite like to meet him. He must be very righteous."

Ryuk grins.

"Not having second thoughts, are you? Worried you've backed the wrong man?"

She laughs humourlessly.

"Light and I are partners," she replies. "Nothing can change that. Perhaps we will liase with this hell-god in the future, and cut out the middle man."

"I'm a middle man?"

"You are useless," she says bluntly. "And unhelpful. Surely, as a god of death, you ought to be assisting me."

"Doesn't work that way, toots, sorry," he says, a little irritably. What is _with_ all these humans trying to critique him? Doesn't being a ten foot tall flying murderous monster earn any respect these days?

"It is irrelevant. I don't need you, anyway. And as for your earlier question, I can assure you that I won't have to kill that many more people. L will not allow it. He will be trying to prove to the world that he is better than Kira. It's what he did before, you know."

"I know."

"But deep down," she continues softly, "he's not better than Kira at all. No-one is, in fact. Far from it. Ordinary people are just too morally weak to stand up for what is right."

Ryuk scratches the back of his neck.

"I get what you're saying, of course," he comments. "It's exactly what Light said. I just. I don't understand. Become a killer to kill the killers?"

She gives him a pitying little smile and turns back to her computer. There are ten other screens in front of her, each showing four different camera feeds from in and around the building.

Talk about paranoid.

"Of course you don't understand," she tells him sympathetically. "You're not really a _proper_ god, are you?"

Ryuk has absolutely no idea how to reply to that.

* * *

"So what the fuck do we do now?" Raye demands.

No-one replies. Naomi isn't surprised.

L is leaning against the wall, bent at the knees, head tipped back, hands jammed into his pockets. Mail is sitting cross-legged in the opposite corner, fidgeting with his laptop distractedly, his face still grey around the edges. She and Raye are perched on opposite edges of the office couch, and he looks about as terrified and awed as she feels.

"Hey," Rae says sharply. "He's talking to you, L."

"You're not helping anything," Naomi hisses. "Let him _think_."

"We could be here for weeks while he fucking _thinks_," the Shinigami snarls. "People's lives are a _little_ more important than politeness, aren't they?"

"You are right," L murmurs, sounding almost sleepy. "We must act now."

"That's exactly what faux-Kira wants," Mail warns. "The most unexpected thing you could do would be to turn this case over to the police. It'd shit her off, too."

L lifts one corner of his mouth in a sad little smile.

"I'm glad to see you're putting thought into this, M, but that's not an option right now. We need to stop this woman within fifteen days. I assure you that the police cannot meet such a deadline."

"We shouldn't act today," Raye says gruffly. "Anyone who makes any movements around faux-Kira in the near future will be strongly suspected of working for you. I say wait a minimum of forty-eight hours."

"Forty-eight, huh?" Rae muses. "How many deaths is that, L?"

"Shut up!" L says, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. "I need your _help_, damnit, not your….your _spite_. If you have a plan, then share it."

"There is only one plan," Rae says. "You know that as well as I do. Now that you're down Roper, one of your team has to go to faux-Kira."

"Nonsense," Raye replies. "It would be better to send a less valuable person. A willing and sufficiently competent police officer. One, they're less likely to be recognised, and two, Kira will not gain as much by killing them."

A wave of nausea washes over Naomi, but this time she's confident it has nothing to do with her illness.

"I can't believe you just said that," she snaps. "That's so… _classist_."

"It's honest, honey," he counters, holding up his hands. "It's how faux-Kira will be looking at it, so we've got to look at it that way, too. Count our resources for what they really are."

"That's people's _lives_ you're talking about!" she tells him, aghast. "It's not…people will _die_, certainly, but you cannot treat them as nothing more than figures on a page."

"A death is a death," L whispers. "But that point is moot, because we _need_ our field operative to survive. Being killed by faux-Kira would render the whole mission pointless. Therefore, we ought to send our very best trained to maximise our chances of success."

"Once we do that, we are committed to destroying this woman, or we will risk having that person killed," Mail points out. "This is a really fuckin' shitty plan."

Rae shrugs.

"You've got to make sacrifices in order to win," it says blandly.

"Quite.," L agrees. "M, you will be needed for observation and monitoring, and you presently lack competent social skills, so you are not an option. Which leaves the three of us."

Naomi thinks he probably brought that up a little too quickly, but Mail doesn't have the wherewithal to be suspicious. He will be a significant difficulty in this case. Along with revealing a team member to Kira, likely endless mobile monitoring of maybe-Takada's base, and attempting to record a confession without arousing suspicion, L also has to conceal her identity from Mail.

"That's it, then," L says. "It's decided. N, you will be in charge in my absence, whether temporary or not."

Naomi feels his words like a slap to the face, and she jumps to her feet, ignoring the dizziness that threatens to send her tumbling back down again.

"_What_?"

"The fuck?" Raye adds, unhelpfully.

"No," the Shinigami says, with finality.

"No," Mail agrees. "Negative. We need you alive."

"We need _all of these people_ alive," L says, agitation seeping into his usually-calm voice. "We agreed we needed to send the best, I see no room for argument."

"_We_ do," Naomi sputters. "Honestly, sacrificing yourself? Do you want a repeat of the original case?"

"I am the best equipped to survive."

"Absolutely not," Raye says firmly. "That would be suicide. Besides, is there anything in your real name that's likely to tip her off as to who you are? Just starting with an 'L' is probably going to draw undue attention."

"This is all due to my failure to catch Light initially," L says matter-of-factly.

"Okay, now you're being stup-"

"This is _not negotiable_," L repeats, holding up one arm as if to block Naomi from coming any closer.

_Damn you_, she thinks viciously. _Of course, with the way you're feeling right now, you want to make yourself suffer as much as possible. Can't you see you're the one who keeps this group together? Don't you remember we all came here because of you?_

"His mind is fucking made up," Raye whispers to her. "Honey, what do we do?"

"I can hear you, you know," L says acidly.

"Don't worry about it," Rae says languidly. "I can keep him here by force if he's really serious."

"No! Do you honestly not understand?" L pleads. "I must do this."

"Why? One look at your face and she's going to know you own a death note. Idiot!"

L touches his mouth.

"She will not expect L to have a note," he says. "That could work in my favour."

Rae shrugs.

"Look, I really don't care what you do, as long as you're stopping this woman. It'll probably work in _my_ favour, since you'll be expected to _use_ the note to prove your loyalty to Kira."

The Shinigami's eyes are dull again, the colour of clotted blood. Naomi thinks the change has something to do with L.

Then again, everything revolves around L, sooner or later.

L's head flops forward limply, and he stares at the carpet.

"I will never forgive myself if anything happens to any of you," he says, his voice quiet and clear.

"It should be me," Naomi offers, immediately seizing the opportunity. "I have the capacity to get close to her, L, and I know how to defend myself."

"Honey," Raye says warningly. "I don't think you've thought about this. I should go. If she's after Light, she's going to be threatened by another woman."

"Also negative," Mail pipes up. "Roper said she was threatened by men. N is the better option."

"So that's decided, then," Naomi says cheerily.

"No," Raye growls, sounding completely horrified. "Geeze. No. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is going to be, Naomi?"

"I survived the original Kira longer than you did. That must count for something," she returns. She's not backing down on this one, damnit. She's confident she can pull this off.

"Naomi gets my vote," Rae says, jabbing L under the ribs. "Hey. Pay attention. We're waiting on your decision, your_ highness_. Take your time. People are only dying as we speak."

"Don't make light of this," L says weakly, speaking only to the Shinigami, eye still trained to the floor.

"_Naomi_, goddamned _listen _to me!" Raye barks.

"Why?" she asks. "This isn't your decision. L has the final say."

Raye's hands are shaking, and he's red in the face. He's scared. And angry. But if he thinks he's going to stand in the way of her doing her job, then. Then maybe he'd be better off with someone else.

There, she actually thought it. Actually put the sentiment into words. It feels strangely liberating, and unyieldingly melancholy.

"L," he instructs shakily. "Tell her she's not going."

L raises his head slowly, his eye lingering on Naomi for a long second.

"She is the best option," he says, finally. "I am sorry."

Raye grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him down until they're nose-to-nose.

"She's a _woman_," he roars, as if that's some sort of defining attribute. And, Naomi realises with a shock, it is. To him. Because that's who he is. She has always known that.

"She is a detective," L corrects, and sometimes Naomi really does think she married the wrong man.

"And she's _ill_!" Raye finishes, and that. That brings the rush of rage that simple misogyny couldn't rouse.

Raye figured it out all by himself, a few days ago. He's no fool, after all. He lives with her. He sees her every day. There are some things that she simply cannot hide, not indefinitely. So they'd discussed it. She would see a doctor once she had a better handle on her symptoms, and he wouldn't tell anyone else.

Ha!

_You swore to me_. _You promised._

_Or does that not matter, because I'm a woman_?

Well then.

"I am not," she replies concisely.

Because she knows, she _knows_, that no-one will take Raye's word over hers.

Hell, they really are all lying to each other, aren't they? Illnesses and criminals and Shinigami. They must be the most screwed-up group of law-enforcers in history.

"You _are!_" he insists, gesticulating wildly. "You _know_ you are! There are days when you can barely get out of bed!"

"You _have_ been very subdued lately," L notes. "N? Is there something wrong?"

Naomi looks him right in the eye.

"I'm a little unnerved at the thought of taking on another Kira," she says confidently. "I presumed everyone else here felt the same. If you are all completely unaffected, then I will gladly concede this role to someone else."

"_Fuck you_," Raye whispers, under his breath.

"I think we can safely say that we are all significantly unbalanced by this case," L says cautiously. "I still want you to think this over, N."

"No need. I'm sure."

She hears her husband stamp to the door, and she hears the loud slam, but she does not move her eyes from L's face.

This is where she belongs.

L looks worried, achingly, unendingly old. He looks frustrated, and tired, and like he's worried that one day he's going to turn the wrong corner and Light will be there.

Naomi doesn't know what to say to him.

"She's going to have to kill someone, remember," Rae points out gleefully.

L swats at it.

"One thing at a time," he says primly, finally breaking away from Naomi's gaze. "I agree that we should wait forty-eight hours, and use that time to prepare ourselves as well as possible. M, get me all the notes you made from Roper's information. N, I wish to think about this a little longer before I finalise the exact details. Please have the night for yourself. I will need to meet with you early in the morning. I will contact Watari and select the most appropriate audio taps. Rae, you would do well to conduct more surveillance on faux-Kira, for now. I realise that it's unlikely that we'll find any more information, but we want to be as sure of her routine as possible."

He goes on, clarifying things, babbling, slipping into full-blown super-detective organisational mode. Naomi tries to concentrate on the sound of his voice, and not on the way the ground doesn't seem steady under her feet, or the way the world is slowly tilting up at a forty-five degree angle.

She'll be fine.

She can handle this.

* * *

_Naomi Misora. Naomi Penber._

Honestly, that woman is wasted on Raye. Wasted on L. Wasted, stuck away in this place, taking orders from a coward. She's brilliant, and she's _good_. She could have been so much more than this. She could _be_ so much more than this.

In hindsight, maybe. Maybe things should have been done a little differently.

No, that isn't possible. And it doesn't matter, anyway. L has his hooks in her now. She's got that look in her eyes, cow-like and possessed. She's drawn to him, orbiting him, unable to break away. She'll ruin her useless marriage, her possible career, her _life_.

Because that's what he does to people. Without even realising. The ability to draw love, to demand love.

Only a weak man would consider that to be _power_. L has nothing else. Nothing but his smile, and his heart.

_Heart_.

And oh, that heart is a double-edged sword, so easily used against him. But he doesn't know that yet. He's almost completely broken, and he still hasn't worked it out.

He'll have to use the note.

He'll _have_ to.

Still, it's sad, to see someone Naomi buckle under him.

_Your life could have been so much better without him. _

_You could have been…_

_Maybe I wouldn't…_

Regrets? Never.

_I'll do it again. And you'll know all about it. I promise._

_

* * *

_

"Don't think I don't know that you're sending me away so that you don't have to deal with me pointing out your huge freaking moral flaws," Rae says darkly. "I know what you _are_, Lawliet."

And he would never normally say something like this, but he's exhausted, and he's terrified for Naomi, and his mind is running overtime, and he is heartily _sick_ of red-eyed Rae.

"Yes. For a while back there, I was your _friend_."

Rae's snort is a little too hard, a little too derisive. Almost imperceptibly so.

Maybe L's imagining it.

"Is that what you think, Miss Marple?"

He might have also imagined the brief, faint change in eye colour back there, back when it was threatening to restrain him.

Best to be sure.

"Your restoration," he says softly. "Is it one hundred percent?"

"What? Yes, of course it is. I _told_ you I was fine."

L reaches for the nearest rib and his hand goes straight through.

"Good," he says, with an empty sort of smile. "Good. One less thing to worry about."

* * *

"I can't _believe _you did that," Raye says, as soon as they're alone. "You lied. You outright _lied_!"

Naomi twists her hair up into a bun, mostly as an excuse not to look him in the eye.

"I can't believe you _told_ him," she returns hotly. "You're my _husband_. You're supposed to keep my secrets. Besides, I'm not _very_ ill."

"You're my _wife_! You're supposed to be _with_ me and not running off _getting yourself killed_."

"Don't be ridiculous. L will be extra careful, now that someone other than him is at risk. This is as safe as half the other jobs we've taken."

"And what if this woman tries to physically overpower you?"

"Why should she do that? I'll be an avid Kira supporter," Naomi says primly, pressing one hand over her heart. "And I'm disappointed that you still can't see that I'm _good_ at my job. I'm not about to just get carelessly killed."

"That's not the point. I'm _supposed_ to protect you!"

"Because you're the big strong man, and I'm a woman?" she asks coolly. "Really. I expected better from you, but now I'm not sure why."

"You're just another one of his _puppets_," Rae yells, infuriated. "You've just become another wannabe L. Can't you see there's more to this world than your job?"

"You mean like settling down and having children and being the perfect little wife?" she asks. "Sorry, babe, but you married the wrong woman, if that's what you want."

Raye scrubs at his face.

"You don't fucking _get_ it, do you? You can't do this _forever. _You can't be with him forever!"

_With him?_

Oh.

"This isn't about L," Naomi says confidently. "This is about _me_. And right now, it's about bringing a murderous psychopath to justice!"

"Justice," he snarls. "You all love that word, don't you? All you goddamned _geniuses_. _Everyone's _out for justice. And the poor, ordinary schmucks like me? I guess we're the ones you're bringing justice upon, right?"

Naomi's irritation escalates into blind, pure fury.

_How dare you!_

"You're the only one who doesn't consider yourself to be part of this group, you know!" she says slowly. She's not like Rae. She can control her rage, and use it to her advantage. If she could do the same thing with nausea, she'd be undefeatable by now.

"_He_ doesn't!"

The same _fucking_ notes again. Raye is completely, absolutely insufferable. She cannot _make_ him understand. The things he says, the way he belittles her so easily, the things he _wants_ from her.

"And you keep implying that _I'm_ in love with him," she says cruelly. "I'm not the one who can't focus on any other subject."

"This is about _us_!" Raye howls, and thank god for that. They'll be arguing all night if they can't even start on the same fucking page.

"Yes," she agrees coldly. "It is. Please stop blaming other people for our problems."

"Fine!"

He plucks a vase from her dressing table and hurls it at the floor. He's always struggled to express himself. She knows that. She knows him. And she knows how much he's worrying. And she _knows_ he's picturing her as a frail, weak little woman, sent into the line of fire by an uncaring boss.

She feels like kicking someone in the teeth. Where is that damned Shinigami when she needs it?

"I can do it," she announces. "I _will_ beat this woman, and the world _will_ be a safer place, and we _will_ win –"

"Always about the fucking winning," he snaps.

"But you don't believe me, do you?" she finishes, with a big, fake smile. "You know, sometimes I worry that I married the only man in the world who doesn't value me as a detective."

Raye gasps, like he's been struck.

"You can't…you're twisting my words!" he protests angrily.

"Really? So that 'woman' comment back then, that was just a slip of the tongue?"

"I _know_ you!" he rages. "I know what you can do. I've seen it. I've seen it over and over and over and over again. And I'm _sick_ of it! I'm sick of always being worried about you, every second of every day."

"Then stop worrying," she says lightly.

"Fuck off," he growls. "You all do it. All three of you. And I fucking hate to watch it. Just because you can do something well doesn't mean you're obligated to do it every day until it kills you, you know!"

Naomi stops, mid glare. Hesitates.

…_do it every day until it kills you._

That's…that's how she feels about L. Worried and exhausted and terrified that someday he'll suffer terribly because he doesn't know when to _stop_.

Is that what she is to Raye? Is she his L?

"I just want to know," her husband continues, voice low and defeated. "I just want to know if this is ever going to stop, Naomi. I followed you here. Aren't we ever…aren't we ever going to let ourselves be safe? Aren't we ever going to be able to live without fear, and worry about things like groceries and bills and getting to work on time? Aren't we ever going to get our _reward_?"

Naomi clutches at her hair, dysphoric and incredibly frustrated.

Of course they are! Of course. That was the deal, the unspoken promise. They would work here, with L, for a while. And then, eventually, they would go…somewhere else. She'd just never dwelled on that part. She always figured that day would be far away.

_And L deserves his fucking reward, too. Someone has to make sure that he gets it. And if I'm not here, who will look after him?_

"Is that what you want?" she asks bluntly. "Do you want to stop, right now?"

"We could, you know," he says, a tiny, pathetic smile forming on his lips. "We aren't contractually obliged to stay. We could find some place, take easier cases-"

"Save fewer people."

Raye grabs her hand, without violence or presumption, and his skin is warm and soft under her own.

"Don't you want a family?" he asks.

"By that," she translates, "you mean 'don't I want children'. Otherwise that argument would make no sense. My husband is here. My brothers are here."

She doesn't mean to say that last part, and the fact that it comes out without any real thought or preparation frightens her.

But that is what they are, are they not? L and Mail. Younger brothers, barely out of their teens, firmly wedged into her heart.

Raye huffs out a little laugh.

"Brothers, huh? Geeze. I guess I really do worry for nothing."

"I would do anything for him," she warns. "You do not worry for nothing."

"Would you do anything for me?" Raye asks, and he sounds so young, too. All of them. They're just.

They're just children, fighting some goddamned never-ending war. Like something from a comic book, except that two-dimensional heroes never lose eyes or get chronically ill.

"Yes," she replies, without missing a beat. She knows. She knows where this is going. He will ask her, now.

But there's something he hasn't thought of.

"Then, leave with me," he says simply. "Pack up and leave. We'll find you a doctor. We'll buy a house easily, with our savings. Maybe two. We'll freelance for a while, maybe forever. If you really are opposed to kids, we'll have cats. Or dogs. Or adopt, if you want. I don't care. I just want you to be safe."

"I want everyone to be safe," she says sadly. "I wish I could make the same request of everyone else here."

"It'd be a crowded house, then," Raye points out, with a momentary grin. He's watching her like she's the most important thing in the universe.

Her head aches, and she hates him for asking this of her. But that's okay. Raye's a detective too, and she's not out of aces yet.

"If we leave now," she says calmly, "L will be forced to tackle this case all on his own."

"I know," Raye murmurs, flopping onto the bed and tugging her down next to him. "And I'm not happy about that, either. But he could stop, you know."

"He can't. He is obligated to protect the world from anyone who uses the name 'Kira'. No matter how many times it kills him. No matter what he loses."

"We can't make his decisions for him," Raye tells her. "We can only make our own."

"And if Takada kills L, we can accept partial responsibility for that, right?" she says gently.

"Don't wish that on him," Raye says disgustedly. "He'll be fine, Naomi."

"Then, I will leave with you," she says abruptly, rising to her feet. "It is decided. There is just one more thing that I need you to know."

"I'm listening," Raye says, with childlike enthusiasm.

"L is in the middle of fighting one of Light's allies," Naomi pronounces. "Even if he is not killed, he is unlikely to succeed if he is working alone. And if he does not succeed, then this woman will restore Light."

"That won't happen," Raye says, but his voice cracks, and he looks distinctly pale.

"If we leave, right now, today," Naomi says, pointing at the floor for emphasis. "If we do not see this case through, then Light will win, Raye."

Raye hooks one finger into his collar, turning as green as she feels, unable to speak. Naomi presses a hand over her mouth, partly out of nausea, partly to hide her smile.

"But I suppose you've already thought about that," she says airily, and goes to retrieve the suitcase from the laundry cupboard.

* * *

Raye likes to claim he doesn't have nightmares. He likes to pretend to be a strong, brusque specimen of manhood.

And he's _good_. Oh sure, not compared to the others, but compared to an average police officer, an average agent, he's extremely talented. He'll drive through brushfire, he'll crawl through booby-trapped buildings, he'll approach renowned murderers and torturers, he'll take on ten men with a single gun and no spare ammunition. And he'll do all of these things without batting an eyelid.

Nothing affects him. Nothing bothers him.

But he cannot – he _cannot_ – set foot in a train. He can't even enter a train station. Because he can't handle seeing the doors slide shut. He _can't_. Never again.

Never again.

_You will not win_!

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ so, once more I'm not certain the next chapter will be done in a week. I think I might just make this a semi-permanent warning, chapters will be up as soon as feasible, but may not be weekly.

+ thank you.


	32. Heart

notes/warnings:

+ swearing like a boss.

+ nudity. do we have to warn for nudity in written media? anyway, there isn't any anatomy mentioned.

* * *

**Heart**

L crouches on the floor in front of his computer, absently tapping the 'page down' key. He has pinned a long stretch of butcher's paper to the far wall, for Rae's records. He cannot recall the last time he actually ate anything more substantial than sugar cubes.

He will never forgive himself if anything happens to Naomi.

Neither of the Penbers have contacted him yet. He is certain that Raye will convince his wife to leave. Sixty-two percent. They should leave. They ought to leave. L might be able to breathe again, if they leave.

The application he submitted to Takada's recruitment website was deliberately gender-neutral.

More people are dying. Most of them are convicted criminals. Approximately point two percent of convicted criminals are actually innocent.

_But you never thought of that, did you, Light? _

_In your own way, you placed so much faith in the judicial system._

Next to L's foot is a wooden case containing a multitude of small, flat pieces of adhesive plastic. Watari has designed them in eighteen different skin tones. The perfect tap. Invisible under clothing, practically invisible even when undressed. Excellent audio reception, difficult to trace.

L selects a grey-white tap and examines it. This one is made for him. It blends in beautifully with his skin. He doesn't understand why Naomi hasn't left yet. This task is madness. He is more likely to fail, alone, but at least no-one else will be hurt.

Is this what he has become? Incapable of saving anyone, reduced to attempting to keep from harming those around him. Pathetic.

_I need you back_.

The thought materialises unbidden, and L shoves it into a dark little corner of his mind and forces himself to focus on the computer in front of him.

In secret, they will also place just one visual tap. The feed will be connected to a small computer, constantly recorded, available for monitoring whenever Mail is safely absent.

Because he cannot know. He absolutely cannot know. In fact, perhaps it would be best if he left L's employment, too. Maybe the Penbers will convince him to go with them.

L loves his team. He wants them with him. It's best if they go. He cannot bear the thought of sending Naomi out to meet Takada. She's been so frightened, of late. Or sick, if Raye is to be believed. Not that that ought to change the outcome. Indeed, an apparently-ill woman ought to seem like less of a threat than one who is completely healthy.

Eventually, Raye comes and leans against the back of his chair. L does not look at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Simple quality control," L answers vaguely. "And you? What will you do, Raye Penber?"

He will never allow Naomi to put herself in such a position.

Raye grabs the headrest and turns the chair until L is facing him.

"You have no idea, do you?" he says seriously. "You have no idea what you do."

"I know what I do," L replies, confused. "Why would you say-"

"Shut up. I know. And I really don't like you very much, L."

L lifts his chin.

"Have you a plane to catch, R?" he asks softly.

_I don't know what I'll do without her. Or you, for that matter._

He ignores the treacherous inner monologue that points out that he'd probably be just fine without Naomi if he had brown-eyed Rae back.

It is irrelevant. What he wants is irrelevant. Whether he is safe is irrelevant.

All that matters is that he win. At any cost.

"Yes," Raye says gruffly. "As soon as we beat this fucking demon. Now come on, my wife is waiting for you to get the taps sorted."

_Oh_, L thinks, relief and renewed terror rushing through him.

_One more time, then_.

"I will be another few hours here, at least," he murmurs.

Naomi is staying. Naomi will do this job for him. Everything has to be perfect, then. He cannot make a single mistake.

* * *

L remains in the same spot for the next twelve hours, watching the death toll rise, fielding panicked emails from police officials, and ploughing through an entire plate of doughnuts. Rae comes and goes, returning to the base when its brain is near-overloaded with detailed technical and geographical information. It sketches across the butcher's paper; Takada's house, every piece of furniture, the position and range of each camera, the view from every window, the potential surveillance spots just down the street.

"You are doing an excellent job," L says ruefully.

Mail wanders in and out of the room, too, co-ordinating and appraising Rae's information like he's a functional human being and not an empty, grieving shell.

L thinks Mello would have been proud of him.

Naomi visits for a few hours, too, to discuss the placement of the taps. L decides that she ought to carry just three. The fewer there are, the less likely that they'll be discovered. Naomi will wear one on her upper arm, one on the sole of her right foot, and one between her breasts. Watari has modified the tiny camera to sit invisibly inside her ear canal.

L tries to convince himself that she will not be easily caught. They are all geniuses, after all. Surely they ought to be able to keep her safe.

"I am still calculating the best possible persona for you to present to Takada," L says softly. "Obviously we want to win her over as quickly and completely as possible. We will decide upon as many details as we can, but some things must be left up to your own judgement. Communication will be difficult once you have been inducted."

"I'll be there with you, most of the time," Rae comments from the corner. "And I'll be able to go to L and pass on messages to you. But you won't be able to speak to me directly, of course."

"Oh," Naomi replies brightly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," the Shinigami replies, equally cheerful.

L is becoming increasingly convinced that the two of them do not get along at all. His misgivings are confirmed a moment later, when Rae leaves once more and Naomi rounds on him.

"Do you trust that thing?" she demands, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Seriously? After everything it's done, do you trust it with my life?"

"It saved mine," L reasons. "Why would I not trust it?"

"That is not a valid point," she argues. "You are the human it belongs to. You are special to Rae. That doesn't mean it won't try to kill other people."

Naomi's words have implications beyond their basic meaning. Impossibly, L feels his face heat up.

"You are quite wrong," he says sadly. "Rae harbours nothing but loathing for me."

He feels bizarrely like Mail, trying to argue his way out of any possible suggestion that Mello might have cared for him. Except that L's situation has credible merit, because _liking_ a Shinigami is completely pointless, and he knew that from the very beginning.

He is being ridiculous. He is being a child. He wills the warmth from his cheeks and shakes his head, just once.

"Yes, it hates me, and yet, it saved my life," he deadpans, looking Naomi directly in the eye. "I trust it with yours, too. It wants to save people."

He does. He trusts Rae. He just.

"I hate it," Naomi says bitterly.

L isn't exactly surprised, but the revelation bothers him in ways he cannot explain.

"What? Why? What has it said to you?"

"It tried to encourage me to mistrust you," she tells him angrily. "It tried to undermine you to me."

Ah. As predicted, then.

"It believes I am evil," he says quietly. "Since you are so evidently a good person, it is possibly trying to protect you from me."

"It doesn't think you're evil," Naomi snaps. "Can't you see that it's trying too hard?"

L stares at her blankly, and them looks away. He values Naomi's opinion, of course, but she barely knows Rae. And she has never met another Shinigami in her life. No, his deputy is absolutely not qualified to presume to know what Rae feels.

And besides, she is wrong.

"Perhaps. Did it succeed in undermining me?"

"No," she says with certainty, but she cannot quite meet his eyes.

_Ah, I see. It has succeeded in causing you doubt._

_Perhaps that is not such a bad thing._

"You and R are leaving at the end of this case," he says calmly. "That will be unfortunate. For me."

"Yeah, maybe," she replies. "But maybe if we can get rid of the Kira fanatics once and for all, he'll feel safe enough to stay, and then we can all keep working together."

L smiles.

"You cannot work for me for the rest of your life, you know," he says sagely. Naomi looks so pale and tired. She needs time off. She needs rest.

How will he forgive himself, if something happens to her? He isn't supposed to ruin people's lives, damnit.

"Huh," Naomi replies thoughtfully. "That sounds like a challenge."

She rests one hand on the desk and pulls herself out of her chair. There used to be a time where he could manipulate her so easily. Surely he could do it again. Surely he could make her hate him again.

Yes. When this mission is over, if she decides to stay, he will become deplorable.

Yes.

"I accept," she continues warmly. "Shall we wager money?"

L waves one hand limply in her direction.

"Sleep," he orders. "You ought to be trying to preserve your strength and health, not worrying about tenuous future possibilities."

She curls one arm around his shoulders, and _goddamn_ it, when did everyone decide that they had a right to touch him? _No-one_ touches him.

Because there was something exciting and giddy about that moment, wasn't there? Being drunk and sleepy and tickled on the floor. And what the fuck is he _thinking_? This is…god, he is tired. He is too tired. That's all.

He watches Naomi leave, deftly stuffing another doughnut into his mouth.

And studiously ignores the tiny, infuriating voice that reminds him that maybe he'd quite like to be special to Rae.

* * *

"So, Jeevas has confirmed that he can't hack into Takada's video feed, which means that we'll definitely be relying on the taps," Rae says confidently. "There is no electromagnetic equipment in or near the building, so the feed shouldn't be disrupted. The only safe place to conduct a stake-out is _here_, around the back, right next to the park. There are several abandoned cars in the area, and a few more shouldn't arouse suspicion."

L squints at his Shinigami's perfectly-illustrated diagram.

"This is too confusing," he says, thumbing his lower lip. "Your reasoning is excellent, of course, but can you label some of these things? The little black boxes are the cameras, yes, and this big square thing here…is…the…"

"Surveillance room," Rae says, rolling its blood-red eyes at him. "Sorry, I thought this chart was foolproof, but I guess I underestimated the extent of your stupidity."

"Mail was getting confused earlier, too," L protests. "Just…label everything, please. It should take you two minutes. Also, I want you to write everything you've noticed of Takada's movements and habits. Please."

Rae hesitates, the pen dangling from its skeletal fingers.

* * *

_Handwriting._

That….no! That could be disastrous.

_A plausible lie, a plausible lie, a plausible lie._

_Aha._

_

* * *

_

"You'll have to do it," Rae informs him coolly. "I can't write."

L gapes at the Shinigami.

"You can't….write?"

"Nope. Why do you think I use your computer all the time for my reports?"

"Do you use a computer to type out names on the death note?" L enquires, utterly fascinated.

"Har har, Lawliet. I can't write human scripts very well. I know your language well enough to read, of course, but I imagine my handwriting would be illegible, at best."

"Oh," L intones. He hadn't thought of that.

"By the same token, I'll type up my notes on Takada," Rae says brightly. "If you don't know what something is, just ask, and I'll tell you."

"So now I'm your scribe?"

"Whatever. Just do it, Miss Marple. People are dying, remember?"

Ah yes. Heaven forbid they actually banter about anything. L feels the smile fade from his lips. People are dying. Rae hates him. He needs to focus.

He grips the end of the pen in his fingertips, and starts labelling the chart in neat, cursive letters.

* * *

"From what she's said to some of her underlings and disciples, I get the feeling this woman would probably be easily manipulated by flattery," Rae reports, scissoring its nightmarish wings. "But that will only work if you've already managed to assuage her paranoia."

Raye hates this. He hates everything about this. This is the worst fucking plan he's ever heard of, and in twenty-three hours Kira is going to know Naomi's name and face. And if they don't beat this woman, his wife is going to die.

And Light might come back. Magically. Raye cannot even begin to comprehend how fucked-up this afterlife thing is. People from hell aren't _supposed_ to be able to come back, and now the psychopath who killed Mail's boyfriend is living in the next _town_ and killing people by the dozen.

He doesn't get it. He really doesn't get it. What's worse is that he doesn't think _L_ gets it, either.

He also doesn't get why they have to work with a goddamned evil skeleton-thing, either. But he is sort of grateful that Naomi's not going to be behind enemy lines all on her own.

He just wishes he had L's conviction regarding the Shinigami's reliability. Because he just…he can't get past those eyes. Rae has the eyes of a psychopath, he's sure.

"I can handle that," Naomi says smoothly, even though her hands are shaking and she hasn't eaten since last night.

"To be honest," Rae muses, "you would probably break down her defences best by acting as if you were in love with her."

"Fuck," Raye mutters. Why do so many cases call for Naomi to pretend to be romantically involved?

"No one is asking you to sleep with her, N," L says quickly.

"It might help," Rae counters. "But regardless, she's frightened and lonely. You can use that against her."

"You're an evil fucking creature, aren't you?" Raye growls.

"Yes. So evil I'm trying to save people's lives," the death god replies balefully. "Anything else you'd like to criticise, or can we get on with it?"

"Go on, please," L says quietly. "Go over her daily routine."

Rae ploughs on, without missing a beat. And Raye knows this is useful information, really, he _knows_, but he just can't concentrate. All he can think of is his beautiful wife, isolated and sick. What if she collapses, and Takada refuses to let her get medical help?

Would L intervene?

Does he love her even a fucking little bit, for all that she loves him? Does he even have a heart in that underweight, anaemic little body of his?

Well, he'd loved Grace, hadn't he? And Matsuda? And he definitely cares for Mail. He'd probably help Naomi. Probably.

Maybe.

Later, when they've finished - when Naomi has gone to rest, and Mail has gone off to do complicated things with computers and taps, and Rae has gone off to eat people's brains or whatever it does – he waits behind with L.

"I know you are angry," the man says diffidently, reaching for another cream-laden muffin. "I too wish this case had turned out differently."

He looks so fastidious and unconcerned, and Raye is instantaneously angry.

_My wife is about to throw herself at the mercy of the new Kira, and you're eating fucking sweets?_

L is well schooled in combat, but he puts up no resistance at all when Raye grabs him by the middle of his ancient white tee-shirt and slams him against the wall.

_You're off your game too, huh?_

_Great. Just fucking great. At this point, my most competent colleague is fucking Depressy McGrief._

"You have _no idea_ how I'm feeling right now," Raye growls. "Don't you _dare_!"

L stares at him, his single eye bovine and unblinking, his jaw slack, his hands dangling limply against the wall.

"Do you hate me?" he asks blandly. "I know you don't like me, R."

L's skin is sallow and grey, and there's a bloody mess of knotted scar tissue under that patch. And he smells horrible. And he's got absolutely _nothing_ on Raye. Nothing.

And yet everyone loves him. Even Mail fucking _likes_ him. At this rate, the fucking _skeleton_ probably loves him, too.

And fuck, being around Mail is bad for his vocabulary.

Raye's gaze drops to L's bare chest, and L instantly closes both arms around the death note that's strapped there.

He's thin, unattractively so, and he looks like his flesh would come apart if touched. He has odd bruises and scrapes from goodness-knows-what. And he really _does_ smell awful. Raye half expects to find lichen growing on his hips, or something.

"What are you doing, R? Is this some sort of revenge?"

"No, you twat. I'm trying to _understand_!" Raye snarls.

He releases L's shirt and leans in violently, crashing their foreheads together. L doesn't have stubble. Not today, not ever. He's a man-child, unable to grow up. His noise is unpleasantly pointed, and his lips look moth-eaten from constant chewing and tugging.

_That mouth. Why would Naomi want that mouth?_

_Are you really nothing more than a sibling to her? But why would anyone just acquire a brother like you? It doesn't work that way. It's all part of this fucked-up little family you've built around yourself because you're lonely and frightened of Light._

_It's your fault._

_It's your fault!_

"I don't see the attraction," Raye says, voice thick with disgust. "I really, really don't understand this…this _hold_ you have over people. What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?"

He shoves L back against the wall and walks away.

And still L says nothing.

* * *

Kiyomi Takada doesn't sleep for more than an hour at a time. She won't eat anything without dousing it in boiling water. She murders anyone who happens to get to close to her. Two mailmen and a little girl 'exploring' with her dog, so far. Even when she's killing criminals, she seems compelled to stop every fifteen minutes or so, and check in with security. She is without a doubt the most paranoid woman in the country.

And yet apparently, she still has the time to spend two hours in front of the mirror, intently styling her hair.

_Women_.

That's a generalisation, of course, and Takada is a particularly bad example. She's weak. She needs to feel protected. She's killing people, not out of justice, not even out of spite, but out of some misguided attempt to find her old companion.

To bring back _Kira_.

Talk about _pointless_.

But that's Kiyomi Takada. No backbone of her own. She always has to be somebody's puppet.

The question is, whose puppet? Who is controlling her this time?

Who is this Big Jason she keeps talking about, and why is she so frightened of him? Has she actually escaped from wherever she was being punished? L is so exaggeratedly worried about the boundaries of hell. He's just as paranoid as Takada, really.

_It's your own damn fault_.

_You didn't have to_-

"Hey, it's you!" Ryuk exclaims, as loud as he possibly can. "Rae!"

"Shut _up_!"

"Eh, I'd worry less if I were you," he replies cheerily. "Takada's busy, and no-one else can see or hear us."

"I know that. Can't you find something _else_ to do?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, like anything other than harassing me every single second that I'm here, and Takada has her back turned."

"Oh yeah," Ryuk says thoughtfully. "How's the detective business going? Is L still as brilliant as he used to be? Have you guys worked anything else out?"

"Well, you've just confirmed she really _is_ Takada, but I knew that already."

"Damn," Ryuk groans, and he really is the most useless creature on the planet. "Oh. Hey. Is L still adorable? You know, I was thinking-"

_Shut the fucking fucking fuck up about that, it was once and it was a trap, and it was nothing more and shut up!_

"Ryuk, is that a giant basket of apples way, way over there?"

"Ooh!"

Ryuk disappears, and is gone for two whole, blissful minutes. Then he re-appears once more.

"You made that up, didn't you?" he says forlornly. "Hey, why don't we get along as well as we used to?"

"Because you are an idiot."

"Oh. Right."

* * *

Raye lies on the bed with her, even though it's barely five o'clock and the door is still open and it's obvious neither of them is going to sleep. Naomi probably won't sleep at all. She's being inducted into Takada's little army tomorrow. The application was accepted. It's all official. Her 'interview' is at ten o'clock, tomorrow morning.

L has given her permission to kill, if she needs to.

"_I'm the one who made that decision. I told you to, so you won't go to hell, you see_. _It will be my fault._"

She's killed before, of course, they all have. But not a presumably innocent person, and never for such a tentative reason.

It will all be worthwhile if they manage to get rid of faux-Kira, though. And Light, if he is about to be unearthed for some ungodly, apocalyptic reason.

And she's glad, almost _relieved_, that she's the one venturing into enemy territory. She's still half-convinced that Kira is lurking in some corner of her mind, slowly dragging her to an inevitable death. She might as well be the one who's in danger. No point in two of them getting killed.

She doesn't tell her husband any of this, of course. She just hooks one arm around his waist and holds on.

Time passes. Night falls. Naomi starts idly considering what she wants to make for dinner. Tomorrow, if she is successful in her induction, she will move into a tiny flat in the same suburb as Takada's base. She'll be cooking just for herself, and she probably won't be permitted to leave the place to buy groceries or purchase pizza.

While living there, she is to act like a normal, well-behaved, god-fearing woman. She is not to show any signs of athletic prowess, she is not to handle weapons, and she is not to contact her team. If she needs something, she is to write it on her phone in Rae's presence, and then delete the message without saving or sending.

Takada will probably put a lock on her phone, anyway. She will be all alone.

With Rae.

L ambles past their open door, eye fixed straight ahead, numerous papers and documents dangling from each of his hands.

He looks so empty.

"L."

Naomi calls out automatically, without really thinking about what she intends to say next. And that's…that's okay. She's going to spend the next few weeks guarding every word, second-guessing every movement. Right now, she'll be as spontaneous as she pleases.

He stops and offers her a worn-out little smile.

"What is it, N? Are you all right?" he asks gently.

He looks like he might snap in half. Naomi blames the Shinigami for that.

_We're all fucked, aren't we?_

But right now, she doesn't feel bad. She doesn't even feel unwell. She throws her free arm out across the empty expanse of bed next to her and wiggles her fingers, beckoning.

"Come here."

L freezes, his eyes flitting from her face to Raye's with agonising uncertainty.

Raye rolls his eyes.

"We're not propositioning you, you know," he says darkly.

And she knows their years-old argument is far from dead, but she's really damn proud of him right now. He could have easily snarled at L and sent him scurrying on his way.

Maybe he knows how scared she is.

"Oh," L manages. "Wait here, I will…uh…"

He disappears for a moment, and Naomi listens to him walk the remaining few feet to Matsuda's room. She hears the door open, and then shut not more than twenty seconds later. She allows herself a tiny smile. If nothing else, she's prevented L from lingering there, with all those painful memories.

If she is killed, will she see Matsuda again? That would be nice.

L pads back into their room, waif-like and exhausted. He clambers fastidiously onto the bed, keeping a polite fifteen centimetres between his body and Naomi's.

She curls her arm around his neck and pulls him close.

"Oh."

He's so light and fragile, and for all that he's meant to have a fantastic metabolic rate, he barely gives off any warmth at all. He is the polar opposite of her husband, and Naomi tips her head back against the pillow, singularly happy.

"You need to shower," she says lazily. "You're starting to smell like something that's been dead for a few weeks."

"I will do that," L assures her, curling his toes against the quilt.

He isn't relaxed, of course. He's bent at the knees, the lower half of his body still positioned in that infernal crouch.

"Since living with you two geniuses, I think we've both become resistant to all forms of body-odour," Raye points out unkindly.

"It's a useful attribute to have," Naomi murmurs.

L doesn't say anything for a few moments, instead regarding their ceiling with fierce intensity.

"Don't forget to emphasise your Catholic upbringings as soon as possible," he says finally. "You are only half-Japanese, after all, raised mostly in the United Kingdom. If you prove you were fanatical about Jesus previously, it will be easier for her to accept that you are now fanatical about Kira. One major change in religion shouldn't be enough to colour you as a disloyal person. Remember that you saw the light when you were still alive, back when the original Kira first showed up. That ought to please Takada."

"Saw the light, indeed," Raye says bitterly, and Naomi closes her hand over his hip, as much comfort as she can offer.

Kira is a demon that they all have to overcome. Each of them, separately, on their own terms.

"I believe we decided against making you vegetarian, didn't we?" L continues stubbornly. "It's better not to be too sanctimonious about life and rights. More important to be focused on justice."

"Yes, I know," Naomi reminds him.

"And mention that you were inspired by your father, a little known judge who worked at the criminal courts, and who-"

"I know, L, we've been through this."

L frowns at her.

"This is important, Naomi. Oh, and remember that you can't be suspiciously perfect, either. You ought to make yourself unappealing in ways unrelated to morality. Fawn over her. Be tiresome, and-"

"L."

"- and become slowly jealous of those around her, in a non-threatening manner. Don't forget that-"

"_L_."

"- you never worked for the FBI, or for me, but you used to be a low-ranking police officer before you devoted your life to finding Kira."

"L, seriously."

"I will leave it at your discretion to decide whether to later reveal some past criminal-inflicted tragedy. Rape will likely be too close to home. Murder may work, if played correctly, but theft would be…mrgh."

Naomi squeezes her forearm a little harder against his throat.

"That's enough," she says firmly. "You have briefed me, and I have an excellent memory. You need to trust me now."

It bothers her that L doesn't struggle, doesn't even reach for her. She hates it when he withdraws into his passive rag-doll mode. She hates it when he looks so utterly defeated.

If she can win this case for him, he will feel better.

Of course, if _Rae_ would stop being a douche, he'd probably feel better too.

She releases him and he mumbles an apology before he even bothers to start breathing again.

"You don't need to talk shop, idiot," Raye says, continuing his uncharacteristically helpful streak. "Just shut up."

"I understand."

Naomi isn't sure how long they stay there, just like that, her two boys pressed to her sides, but eventually she starts to feel some of the tension slowly drain from L's shoulders.

And eventually, Raye starts snoring in her ear.

"I worry for you," L whispers into the darkness.

"I know," she replies. "That's why I'll be fine."

"I don't know if this is really useful information, but Takada's frightened of big dogs and open flames," Rae announces, casually bursting into the room. "She's also…what the fuck is going on in here?"

The Shinigami folds its arms and glares at each of them in turn.

No, check that. It glares briefly at L, and then looks at Naomi as if it wishes her a painful, painful death.

"Nothing," L says calmly. "We were discussing the case."

"In _bed_?"

L tries to get up, and Naomi holds him to her.

Just out of curiosity. Just to see. She's an expert at reading people, has been ever since she died. Because no-one is ever going to trick her like _that_ again, damnit.

Apparently, she can read Shinigami, too.

"Yes, in a bed. Well, technically, on a bed. Naomi was tired."

"I see," Rae says darkly, and L seems to crumple under its derisive glare.

"Raye is here too," he protests plaintively. "I am not imposing on…on anything."

"_You're_ imposing, Rae," Naomi says loudly. "Can't you just write this information down somewhere?"

"Eh?" Raye mutters, and Naomi presses her foot against his leg.

_Trust me_.

"You might give orders to everyone else, Penber, but you don't give them to me," Rae snarls, taking the bait beautifully.

"Of course," she replies, smiling broadly. "L? You want to stay with us a little longer?"

"L, I need to talk to you about Takada," Rae demands. "And I want to get back to her base as soon as possible."

_Ha_.

"All right," L replies miserably. He knocks Naomi's arm aside and crawls to the edge of the mattress.

"You don't have to do what the skeleton says, you know," she points out lightly.

"Right," L agrees dutifully, ambling towards the door. "But I ought to go and shower. You said so yourself. Come on, Rae, you can talk to me on the way."

Rae hesitates for a moment, and shoots Naomi a feral little grin that plainly reads, _I win_. Naomi waves lazily in reply.

_Oh no, you don't. You really, really don't, Shinigami_.

They leave without another word, and that's okay too. She's learned something.

"Finally alone," Raye huffs against her neck. "Honestly, that man is a three-ring circus all by himself. He makes everything dramatic and complicated."

Naomi rolls over to face him.

"We're pretty complicated all by ourselves, baby."

"Yeah," he agrees. "I can't wait until this is over."

"I know," she says, pushing her face into his shoulder. "I know."

* * *

"I tricked Ryuk into confirming her identity," Rae boasts. "She's definitely Takada."

"I see," L replies, pulling the door shut behind him. "Did you happen to find out why her name is in gibberish?"

"He doesn't know."

"What a useful character he is."

"You're telling _me_."

L finds himself battling the urge to grin, the way he always does whenever their conversation edges towards cordial.

"But this is troublesome," he adds, thumbing his mouth. "Takada is definitely in hell. Takada is definitely here. What does that mean, Rae?"

"That this place is her hell, I suppose," Rae replies offhandedly.

"Or she is here to be judged," L muses.

Which is problematic in itself. Should he try and help Takada recognise and pass her test, if he can? After all, he is decidedly opposed to the judgement of the hell-god. Which means that he ought to be trying to protect people like Takada. And Rae. Or, well, Rae seems to be doing just fine on its own, now.

It probably doesn't need him any more.

L tugs his belt free, dumps it on the sink, and hands over the death note. Naomi asked him to get clean. It's the least he can do for her.

"Any news on Big Jason?" he asks, reaching for the taps. "It would be useful to know who's motivating her."

"Nope, nothing. But I've never seen anyone so petrified of another human being. Well, except _you_, of course."

L pulls his shirt off over his head and sighs.

"And you still believe the original Kira was morally correct?"

"Yes."

"I wish you'd at least debate with me about it," he says, kicking off his jeans. "I'm sure I could convince you-"

"I don't like you," Rae says coldly. "You will not convince me of anything."

"You like Naomi," L points out. "You tried to protect her from me."

"Yes, of course," Rae says, and there's the faintest hint of…strangeness to its voice.

_I don't understand you any more_.

L finishes undressing and steps into the shower. Before Rae came along, he'd never showered in front of anyone before.

Except for Light, of course. But that was by necessity. This is by necessity too, of course, but he likes Rae. He misses Rae.

And hell, is every single thing he does always going to bring back memories of being chained to a serial killer?

It doesn't matter that he misses Rae, anyway. Rae is safe. He needs to focus on keeping Naomi safe. And saving Mello.

One thing at a time.

L stands motionless; hands at his sides, letting the water soak his hair and tumble from his skin in rivets.

"Tell me something, Rae," he says softly. "What would be hell for you?"

"What?"

"Hell is tailored to an individual person. Which circumstances would you consider to be the most torturous?"

"Besides being stuck with you all day, you mean?"

L hangs his head a little lower.

"Yes. Other than that."

_Am I your hell, Rae? Is that what we are? But we were such a good team._

"I don't know."

"Lack of power?" L queries.

_The hell-god is manipulating you._

_I'm forty-one percent sure._

"I don't know, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you," Rae says with finality.

"I see."

Time passes, and L doesn't actually reach for the soap. The water won't clean him on its own, but it is comforting, the spray feels like rain against his scalp. If Light comes back, Rae won't protect him.

"Same question," Rae says eventually, shattering the silence.

"You know the answer to that," L replies. "That chain. I can still feel it sometimes."

"Seriously?" Rae groans. "Is every single bad thing in your life honestly down to the same person? What about your mother? What about the things that befell that boy of yours?"

"I barely remember him."

"What about never saving Mello?"

"That seems to be my reality, more than hell," L replies morosely.

"You need to snap out of this," Rae says dangerously, getting to its feet and stalking over to the stall. "You can't sulk and whine and wallow in your own doubts. This is a really fucking difficult mission we're about to pull off. And we need to win. Takada is a sociopath."

"Yes."

He can barely see Rae through the frosted glass of the door. Which means Rae can barely see him. The water trickles down between his eyes.

There is another long pause before Rae gets angry again.

"Are you just standing there with the water coming down on your fucking head?" it demands.

Drip, drip, drip.

He ought to dry someone's feet, now. Then he'll be certain to die. It will be him, and not Naomi. And…god. What is he _doing_?

L shoves the shower door abruptly open.

"I am changing our plans," he tells Rae firmly. "The lack of lifespan over my head will inspire Takada's trust. I will go before Naomi. She need only be dispatched if I am killed."

Rae stares at him. It has seen him naked plenty of times before. He's not bothered.

"You are out of your damn mind," it says succinctly.

"No," L corrects. "I haven't been thinking about this logically. All I need to do is ask Takada to prove to me that she has a note. I could wrap up the case within five minutes of meeting her."

"You haven't even used any fucking soap," Rae chides. "You've been standing in there, _angsting_."

"Calculating," L returns. "I will show Takada my note, profess my love for Kira, and tell her we are clearly both meant to work together to restore him. She will be able to see that my death note is real, but I will need proof of hers. It is the perfect scenario."

"It is _not_," Rae says vehemently.

"It is-"

"Shut the _fuck_ up," the Shinigami roars. "Honestly, are you even _thinking _about this? One, she's going to order you to make a deal with me to confirm her identity, rather than reveal herself. And two, have you forgotten that _your first name is 'L'?_ She'll kill you on sight, just for that! Just in _case_ you're really you."

_You really don't get it, do you? And you hate me so much, I thought you'd understand._

"It would be worth the risk," he explains patiently. "To protect Naomi, it would be worth the risk. Even if I died."

Rae strides over to him, puts one hand on his bare chest, and pins him against the tiles. A demonstration of strength.

"I will stop you," it promises unkindly. "I will not let you do that."

Something deep inside L's chest comes undone. Comes apart with a _snap_.

He's so _tired_, and _god_, and on and on and on and on. He's not L, he's just.

He's just.

When did he get like this?

"You have no right to stop me," he says balefully, sidestepping out of the Shinigami's grip. "You ought to mind your own business. Try to convince me to use the note, but-"

"I'll do what I want," Rae hisses. "And if you're too defunct to make your own decisions like an adult, then I'll make them for you."

"You don't _care_!" L yells, slamming his right fist against the wall.

Rae gapes at him.

"Of course I care," it says haughtily. "I care about people, and lives, and making the world a better place. You _know_ that, damn you!"

"I know, I know," L says, swiping at his forehead, wiping errant drops of water from his eyes. "You're a good Shinigami, you save more people than me, if Naomi survives this it will be because of you. And you've got your red eyes back…and…and…"

He stops in the center of the bathroom. He's such a mess. He doesn't want to. He sinks into his crouch just because it feels familiar. He wants sugar. He wants to eat until he's sick.

"I hate you," he enunciates quietly. "I wish I had never met you, death god."

"The feeling is mutual," Rae responds. "Now get up off the floor and start acting like a fucking detective. The world needs you."

"And I need _you_!" L snarls, the start of a landslide, everything he didn't want to say. "I need you, and I miss you, and I _hate_ that you need to be this kind of person to be functional. I wanted you to look after me, and I can't…I can't…I can't _do_ this without you!"

He's panting hard, and Rae is staring at him as if he's grown an extra set of arms, and everything is. Everything is broken.

What was it that Rem had said to him?

_Heaven only knows what would happen to a human that develops feelings for a Shinigami._

_

* * *

_

L sits like a lump in the middle of the room, looking both distressed and surprised with himself.

It should be funny.

It ought to be funny.

It _is_, funny. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. HA HA HA HA HA!

Why doesn't he ever know when to fucking fucking fucking shut up fucking damn it? Why does he even have the capacity for emotions? Why does he put himself in such stupid situations?

Must be that heart. That mighty, powerful, enslaving heart. The one that got Naomi. The one that almost…

_Ha, you nearly had me there for a minute. This is what you do, isn't it? Occasionally act as pathetically as possible, to make people want to protect you._

_Don't you know that you can't beat me?_

_Don't you know?_

L seems to be waiting for some sort of reply. Or possibly he's just anticipating a punch to the face. His remaining eye is huge and dark, and he's shaking. His shoulder-blades stick out from his back like useless wings. His hair is sopping.

"It's all right," he says, with a tiny little smile. "More than anything else, I want you to be healthy. I want all my team to be healthy and safe."

The change feels like a harpoon through the chest, obliterating everything. The numbers under L's name start to fade, and…

"You are disgusting."

L gets to his feet and nods solemnly.

"No, really, you are. I don't fucking know what you want me to say, but I assure you that I don't give a damn whether you're alive or dead. When this is over, being rid of you is going to be the most amazing thing in the world. Better than being king, even."

He finally reaches for a _fucking_ towel, and manages to actually cover himself. Wonders will never cease.

"I understand, Rae"

"No, you don't. You don't get it at all. You _hurt_ people. I can't protect Naomi from you because she loves you and you _use_ her like a cheap appliance. You take people and you destroy them, all the while pretending to be a hero. You save lives at the cost of other lives. You're not Kira. You're _worse_ than Kira. You're worse than any human I've ever met, you are filth."

L has…his collarbones are…he's…

'_Hey. Is L still adorable?' _

_SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!_

"Are you even _listening_ to me?"

L cowers a little, head bent as if he's ready to accept every last word.

"This is your hell, L. This is all you get because your own company is the worst thing anyone can ever FUCKING give you! You are a noxious and self-serving little hypocrite who deserves NOTHING AND MELLO IS IN HELL BECAUSE OF YOU, _DAMN YOU, _BUT THAT'S OKAY RIGHT BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU'RE GOING TO GROW UP TO BE JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER!"

Silence reigns supreme.

"You always say things like that," L comments, miserably.

But the sickness is gone, banished like so much evil. There are always obstacles. L will not be difficult to break.

_You are nothing. You are nothing to me. I promise._

_I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it._

_

* * *

_

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ next chapter will be up when it is up, because I am a loser who sucks at plotting things. maybe I need to just issue a permanent warning for possible update lateness. yeah.

+ thank you. a special thank you to those of you who leave me wonderful reviews and then proceed to have PMs blocked so I cannot send you back gushing, socially-awkward messages. so, thank you!


	33. Sweet

notes/warnings

+ swearing. hooray for swearing!

+ none of you noticed me posting this five days late, did you? no? good.

* * *

**Sweet**

L has almost nothing to say to him, which is kind of a relief. It would be nice if he'd actually do some _work_, instead of staring forlornly into the depths of his computer screen, but hey. Can't ask for everything.

_I'd only ask for one thing, if I ever get the chance to ask_.

L's actions mimic Mello's, the grief, the hopelessness, the horrible acceptance. Mello had been about to die. L thinks he's going to die. Strange, the similarities between two unrelated men who barely knew each other.

But god, it's not fair to compare them at all. L never sacrificed himself, not really. He only had to taste that defeat once it was already upon him. There was more than one other person in the world that cared when L died.

Mello deserved so much better than he got, and that's the real kicker. He _was_ as good as Near, not in logic and raw intelligence, but in talent and innovation and social ability. Mello had this amazing capacity to read people, and predict what they felt and loved and feared.

_But it never worked on me, did it, doll?_

_Or did it? Did you know? You must have known. Why didn't you say anything? _

_Were you disgusted with me, the whole time?_

He feels ashamed, now that he's doing this. Now that he's agreed to try and _be_ Mello, instead of just a tribute to him. He worries what Mello would think, if he knew. How he'd feel about someone as ordinary and pathetic as Mail, trying to emulate him.

Mail is doing a shithouse job at it, anyway. He's hardly confident and brilliant. And he's not even going to attempt the rockstar-style thing. And his talents are still very much his own, pathetic, technology-based talents.

But maybe it's worth it. If he can keep L remembering about Mello, then that's another little piece of the immortality that Mello so desperately deserves.

Mail tests each of the taps one more time. Perfect. The reception is absolutely flawless. If faux-Kira confesses, they will have a valid recording. Of course, to ensure a conviction, they also need a witness, too. Which means that lady – Naomi – has to get through this alive.

He checks his email one more time. Nothing new. Faux-Kira has sent a rather vague email demanding that 'A Believer' meet some of her associates in a warehouse a few blocks away from the actual base. For 'personality and moral assessment'.

If that isn't some fucked up, creepy shit, then Mail doesn't know what _is_. But of course, he knows what it means. Do you love Kira, yes or no? Will you cheerfully sacrifice your life, family, happiness, and future, to do whatever random task you are assigned? Please tick one box.

The world will be a better place without this chick. Even he can see that.

And L, god, L is a freaking mess. L is the worst mess Mail has ever seen outside of a reflective surface. It's like he actually thinks Kira is following him around, waiting to deliver that heart attack again.

Death. It's fucked all of them up, good and proper.

In Mail's opinion (which isn't worth shit, he knows), L's approach to this case is a little strange, and a little skewed. It's true that visual taps are a bit bulkier than audio taps, but surely the slightly increased risk would be worth getting more viable evidence.

Apparently not.

And the car thing is weird, too. Of course, for surveillance and Naomi's safety, the three of them will be stationed in vehicles close to faux-Kira's base. But L will be alone, and Mail will be with that man. Raye.

For long-term stake-outs, Mail is always with L. Invariably. But not this time.

L is alone.

And it's none of his business, really. But it's just odd. And Mail notes and logs that, along with everything else.

* * *

Kiyomi gets up at three in the morning, approximately twenty minutes after she went to bed. She throws on an expensive silk robe and walks to the other side of the room to check the security cameras.

She can't sleep. She's got a bad feeling about tonight. Like Jason's breathing down her neck. Like L is lurking in the shadows. Like Light is very far away.

And god, why is this so _hard_? Why does it always, always have to be so hard? Why is the world too stupid and incompetent to recognise them for the gods that they _are_? Why does there always have to be distance between them?

Like that damn cheap hotel-room carpet, stretched between his bed and her own. All that time, all those nights, and they never…

Not even once.

It's still more than Misa got. Of _course_ it's more than Misa got. Misa was nothing to him, just a puppet, just a toy, just a thorn in his side. Kiyomi was his partner. And there will be time for everything else once the criminals have been judged and they are together again.

"Oh, you're awake?"

She groans out loud, eyes lingering on each of the tiny screens in front of her.

"You truly are a genius, Shinigami. How did you ever figure it out?"

Ryuk looks confused and rubs the back of his neck.

"Er, it was kind of obvious?" he offers.

"Yes," she says snidely. "There are apples in the kitchen. Leave me in peace."

"Yay!"

_Gods of death, indeed_, she thinks disdainfully. _More like children. _

And she's never been good with children, not even when she was a child herself. They are, on the whole, generally noisy, dirty, and demanding.

It would be different if they were Light's, of course. And that is an excellent point. When Light is free and they are together, he will doubtlessly want children as soon as possible. Successors. _Real_ successors, not random urchins harvested from local orphanages. Honestly, what sort of a loser can't even manage to _reproduce_?

She knows things of L, tidbits of information that Light has told her of his finest hour and the events preceding it. He should not be difficult to beat. He seems to have no charm, no style, no common sense, and no friends. Intellect alone does not win wars.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket, and she jerks violently, fear pulsing through her. Only one person would be calling her screened mobile at this hour.

"What do you want?" she snarls, sounding a good deal more confident than she feels.

"Now, is that any way to greet the man who is going to reunite you with your beloved?"

"Don't you have anything _useful_ to say, you monster?" she grits.

_You will suffer. You will be the first. I promise you this._

_Everything you've done…_

_I promise you this_.

"Just checking up on you," Jason says, in an unpleasantly cheerful tone. "Wouldn't want you suddenly running off, since we have a new deal. I keep seeing your handiwork on the news. You are very…thorough, aren't you?"

"What did you expect me to do?" she asks tersely.

Big Jason laughs, deep and horrible.

"What you do is up to you," he says eventually. "Is he honestly worth all of this trouble?"

_You…you're trying to stop me_!

The realisation hits her in a surge of cold panic.

"Of course he is, you monster," she snaps. She hangs up the phone and lets it drop to the floor, hands shaking violently.

If Jason…if Jason tries to stop her. If he even tries. He might. He's powerful like that. If he takes the death note away, she'll lose Light.

She'll…lose…

_No!_

She unlocks the safe under her bed and snatches up the death note, examining several pages at random, just to be sure the note is still safe.

The pages are supposed to be limitless, self-replenishing. Even if Jason takes the note itself, he won't know if a page is missing. And if he takes the note, and she has even the tiniest scrap left over, she can kill Jason and have him send it back to her.

An insurance policy. Yes. She needs to be safe. She needs to protect _Light_.

_How can I have been so lax?_

She takes the pocket knife from her garter and meticulously cuts eight pages free from the binding. She places one under her pillow, and slips another into a stack of ordinary printer paper. She tucks a third sheet into a miniscule crack between the wall and a bookcase. Then she stops and examines the room, pushing a hand through her hair the way Light used to do, trying to decide on the best possible hiding spots.

Two hours later, she has successfully hidden all eight pages. Carefully. Painstakingly. Where Jason will never find them. As a final precaution, she tucks a coin-sized piece of death note into her watch.

_You'll be so proud of me, Light_.

Nothing can go wrong, now. Nothing.

* * *

One thing is certain. He has lost Rae. He will face this case - and all other cases to come - all on his own.

Of course, Rae still doesn't let him change places with Naomi, and L wishes he could read some affection into that gesture. But the sad truth is, the Shinigami is convinced that he will use the note. Therefore, his life will be automatically defended up until he fulfills that purpose, or until he becomes too troublesome to be worth the effort.

L thinks he must be edging towards the latter, now. Rae has not insulted him so ferociously in many months.

_I don't damage people, and I don't use people. I'm not Light. I'm not._

Maybe it would be better to just face Light once more and get it over with. Die again, perhaps forever. Be sent to hell, if he isn't already there.

And really, how could he be in hell? He very much doubts that Naomi's trust and Matsuda's affection and Mail's tentative strength and Grace's pears could constitute any sort of hell. No, the second world is a good place.

And he will defend it, to the best of his ability.

The sun rises far too soon, painting the sky a damning, pastel pink. L writes Naomi a private email, because there is something he wishes to say, and he doesn't much care to hear her reply. Besides, there's no conceivable way he'd be able to separate her from Raye right now, not even for a moment.

The content is brief, a few lines, the biggest sacrifice he can make for her.

_I want you to know that I appreciate what you are about to do._

_If anything goes wrong, if she discovers you work for me, if she threatens you, if you feel incorrigibly ill, if anything goes wrong at all, then I urge you to signal me. _

_Say "I don't understand" three times in a row, and I will come for you. No matter what._

_L._

It does not have to be her life. It can be his. His time has to come, sooner or later. He has no family, not really. Only the fake, make-believe family he has built for himself. Naomi has a husband, and she has potential.

Nothing can be allowed to go wrong.

L clicks 'send' and walks away from his computer.

* * *

Naomi reads the message five times over and then deletes it. Her heart aches exquisitely. L is good. He is too good. Rae is absolutely, one hundred percent wrong about his character. And regardless of what happens, of what Takada does to her, she will never use that signal.

L cannot die. L cannot be hurt. This world needs him. Far better for her to sacrifice herself than to risk his life.

Of course, Rae's _real_ estimation of L's character might not be what it seems. Is definitely not what it seems. Naomi grins suddenly, like she's won some vague, undefined game.

"You okay, baby?" Raye calls from the bathroom, expression concerned, face mostly covered in shaving cream.

"Yes, honey," she replies affectionately. He has asked fifteen times in the past hour. He is absolutely terrified. He keeps hugging her, and clinging like they'll never see each other again. Like they'll end up like Mail and Mello.

Which is impossible. They both love each other, and they're both good people. No matter what happens, they'll eventually wind up together again. Naomi is certain of that.

"Shit, it's seven thirty already," Raye says apprehensively. "We've got, like, two and half-"

She crosses the room in two strides and wraps her arms around his waist.

"We have all the time in the world, Raye Penber," she says softly. "You and me. Come what may."

He touches the crown of her head, unwittingly smearing soap across her dry hair.

"There's a very good chance you could be killed," he breathes.

"There's a very good chance we might stop Kira for good," she counters.

"We thought we'd done that years ago," Raye says, voice trembling.

"And besides, even if I am killed, we know that's not a permanent situation," she continues. "I will see you again, I swear. I swear on you."

Raye meets her eyes in the mirror, and then looks away.

"Maybe I'd be happier if you swore on L," he says, voice low.

Naomi frowns. She doesn't want to have this argument, not today, not _now_, not when there are so many other things to think about.

"Raye," she says carefully. "We've discussed this. You know I don't-"

"L requests that you attach the taps now so that we can perform a final sound check," Rae announces, bursting inconveniently through the nearest wall.

"Already?" Raye asks weakly.

Once the taps are in place, the two of them will have no privacy at all. Ten o'clock doesn't seem far enough away. But _Rae_ is here, and the damn evil thing is probably going to kill her anyway, and Naomi has something to say.

Oh yes.

"Hello, Shinigami," she says brightly. "I haven't seen you since last night. Did L enjoy his shower?"

Rae shoots her a nasty look.

"I imagine so. I don't pay all that much attention to human affairs, I'm afraid," it replies, voice dripping with congeniality.

"Of course," Naomi says warmly, releasing her husband to better focus on the monster-god in front of her. "I suppose now that we'll be working as partners for the next two weeks, we ought to try to get along."

"But of course."

It's like a competition of fake, sickly-sweet smiles. Naomi sort of wants to laugh. Rae is completely ridiculous.

"And in fact, I realised last night that you kind of remind me of someone I used to know," she baits winningly. "Perhaps that will allow us to get closer to one another."

"Please don't compare me to humans," Rae returns politely. "We Shinigami find that sort of talk offensive, Naomi."

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't making a physical reference, simply a behavioural one. I ought to have clarified. The way you were treating L last night reminded me of a boy I used to go to school with."

"Oh?"

Raye is now staring at each of them in turn, with increasing skepticism.

"Naomi, what are you-"

"Yes, that's right," Naomi continues gleefully, ignoring her husband. "His name was Ren, I think, and he treated me as if I was the most terrible person in the world."

"And were you?" Rae prompts, but there is doubt in its voice, and she feels strangely validated.

_Even you don't think that's possible_.

_And that's how it should be, too. I'm good. I'm damn good._

"No, I was just an ordinary girl," she replies. "Neither bad nor good. Turned out that he treated me that way because he had feelings for me, and couldn't handle them."

The benign smile slips from Rae's skull-face like water from a wall, immediately replaced with an expression consisting mostly of pure, violent hatred.

And perhaps a little bit of fear.

Naomi sort of wants to lick her finger and draw an invisible mark in the air. It's childish, this whole conversation is childish and petty and pointless, but she's grateful for the distraction.

"That's why you were so upset to find him in bed with us, wasn't it? You were jealous."

"I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer," Rae replies coldly, its voice deep and threatening. "I'm just going to stand here and watch the numbers count down over your head, Naomi Penber."

"Shut _up_, you!" Raye roars. "For fuck's sake, she's about to put herself on the front line. Show some compassion!"

"This thing isn't capable of compassion," Naomi tells him, her eyes still trained on Rae's.

"And what are _you_ doing picking fights at a time like this?" Raye continues, sounding lost and angry. "I don't understand."

Naomi takes his hand.

"I'm as nervous as you are, that's why," she lies. "I just. I'm just trying to calm my nerves, that's all. I can't face Takada competently unless I burn off some of this adrenaline."

She did it on purpose, and she enjoyed every second of it. Rae has a thing for L. Rae has a thing for L, and it's _suffering_. And she wants Rae to suffer. She's wanted Rae to suffer from the moment she met it.

Two and a half hours to go, and she feels good. She actually feels _good_.

She can beat Takada. She can beat _anyone_, illness or no illness. She'll be fine.

"Come on," she continues, tugging her husband towards the door. "Let's get this done."

* * *

They travel together for the first fifteen minutes or so, until they get close. Watari has left a suitably cheap and austere vehicle about a block from the meeting point. Naomi is to drive the rest of the distance alone. Raye and Mail will then go and set up observation outside Takada's base, while L stays close by, monitoring the feed until the initiation is done.

So simple. So easy.

He doesn't send Naomi in unarmed, of course. The plan is to flatter and admire Takada into admitting to her crimes without arousing any suspicion at all, but there are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong. And if they do, L, Raye, and Mail will be a good few hundred meters away.

According to L's estimations, it takes approximately two seconds for the average human to scribble a name on a piece of paper. Give or take half a second.

Naomi has a plain gold ring on her finger. Within it is a tiny, retractable dart and an injection system loaded with just enough anesthetic to render an adult unconscious. The giant cross hanging around her neck can be quickly dismantled to give access to a miniature blade.

That is all she has to defend herself. Any more weapons, and her safety would be severely compromised.

_You should have just left, N. Your life will be better when you're free from me._

He has to get her through this. He has to.

She knows the script, she knows who she has to be, and she knows Takada's most obvious weaknesses.

And Rae will be with her. L is relieved that Rae's endless supply of loathing seems to be solely directed at him. He is ninety-four percent confident that his Shinigami will defend and protect Naomi to the best of its ability, no matter what.

Because Rae does his job better than he ever could.

Naomi and Raye are sitting in the back seat in silence, fingers entwined. Mail is driving. He doesn't stink of nicotine today. L thinks that being forced to work a case like this might actually be good for his mental health.

As long as they can keep Takada secret from him. Because L knows Mail would gladly compromise the entire mission just to get one clean shot at Takada's pretty head.

Last night, a national French news channel declared Kira officially returned. The relevant government authorities claim that they no longer have the means to gag the media. Other countries are still going strong, but the undercurrent of panic is impossible to ignore.

Twelve days until Takada starts killing ridiculous numbers of criminals. Of course, L could stop her from doing that. He could turn himself in, any time he chooses. Except that Rae probably wouldn't let him. And he'd be scared to die, now, anyway. It could be that his death will restore Light. It's not impossible, given the apparently unpredictable nature of hell, that L is some sort of ballast, that Light can only return by displacing him.

And stealing his identity. Again.

_No, no, no, no, no. _

_No!_

He cannot, he _will_ not.

Surely not.

He was halfway to convincing Rae that Light was evil, before Rae restored itself and started despising him again. The two of them, together, they could have been…

He could have been safe, forever.

Mail pulls over at the designated spot. They are all scheduled to leave one by one, at fifteen minute intervals, just in case. Naomi, naturally, is the first one to leave.

She doesn't grimace, or cling to Raye, or give some serious and heartfelt goodbye. She simply adjusts her headscarf, checks each of her concealed weapons, pats her husband on the shoulder, and gets out of the car.

"Let's do this," she mutters, and slams the door shut behind her.

L watches her walk off down the street. Behind him, Raye is trembling and cursing under his breath and falling apart, but there's nothing L can do about that.

His Shinigami will be waiting for Naomi at her destination. Her induction. The surrendering of her name and face to the new Kira.

The front line of the fight against faux-Kira. Naomi and Rae.

L hates the fact that he isn't sure which of them he's going to miss more.

* * *

Kiyomi takes a sip of her no-fat, triple-shot espresso, and smiles. She hasn't had a decent applicant in several days now, but this woman sounds absolutely perfect. She's demurely dressed, and pretty enough, nowhere near as beautiful as Kiyomi, of course. No partner, no living family, no job, no notable friends. A devout Kira-worshipper. A perfect candidate.

"Ooh, she's cute," Ryuk says brightly.

"Are you even supposed to find human women attractive?" she chides. "Surely that must be against some sort of law."

"Looking is okay," Ryuk assures her. "Besides, it's not, like, sexual or anything. It's more the way…hmmm. It's like the way a human might admire a pretty bird."

"Charming," she says darkly, her eyes never leaving the observation screen.

The woman is ushered into the interview room by one of Takada's favourite security guards. She moves confidently, but there's nervousness in her dark eyes and the exaggerated sway of her hips.

_Ah, yes, you'll be easily manipulated_.

_But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself, this little waif probably won't even pass the test._

Her name is Naomi. Naomi Penber. She drops delicately into the only chair, and bows her head.

"I await your instruction, my Lord," she says softly.

Kiyomi taps the button connecting her microphone with the room on her screen.

"A Believer, was it?" she asks politely. "Please tell me your real name."

"Naomi Penber," the woman replies dutifully. "Would you like my maiden name as well, my Lord?"

"That is not relevant," Takada informs her. She has the name she needs to dispose of this woman, if necessary. And Naomi has not lied. So the interview must progress further.

"My apologies, my Lo-"

"Please address me as 'my Lady'," Kiyomi corrects. "Why have you applied to join this movement?"

Naomi fidgets with the seam of her coat, and then raises her hand to clutch her cross.

"When I was just eight years old, I was told of a god who would save all of mankind," she explains. "I was confused for many years, trying my best to devote myself to Catholicism. Then, everything changed. Terrible people started disappearing from the world. I was mugged in an alleyway. The man threatening to cut out my throat died right in front of me. It was then that I understood that god was protecting me."

"So you believe you are special to your god?" Kiyomi asks, raising her eyebrows.

_Too cocky, perhaps?_

"I believe god loves us all," Naomi says earnestly. "Our god. The true god. Kira. The one who will save us all. You have no idea how happy I was, to find you had returned. You. My lady. I can hardly believe I am speaking with you. What would you have me do?"

_Goodness me, so willing to sacrifice yourself_.

Kiyomi wants her to pass the final test, now. She wants this devout little woman on board.

"Not so fast," she says sternly, and Naomi flinches and cowers.

"I'm sorry, my Lady."

"I am not Kira," she continues. "I am the head disciple. I am recruiting strong supporters to help me restore our god, our Kira. Would you be willing to join us?"

"Of course," Naomi whispers, tears welling up in her eyes. "It's all I've ever wanted, ever since I can remember. I will do anything I can, my Lady. Anything."

"I see. And what do you know about the detective known as L?"

Naomi frowns and is silent for a few moments.

"Is…is she? I don't. No, I'm sorry. Have…have I failed the test?"

"Not yet," Takada says smugly. "There are a few more questions, first, and then you must complete a task for me."

"Then I will do my best," Naomi promises. "For you, and for Kira. Ask anything of me. Anything."

Oh yes. Kiyomi is going to quite enjoy having her around.

* * *

"I thought she was never going to stop talking," Rae grumbles. "I can't believe she interviewed you for two _hours_."

_It was a useful process_, Naomi thinks. _Now she is convinced that I am absolutely obsessed with Kira. And that I'm probably not much of a threat. It places me in a good position._

"This way, applicant," the security guard tells her gruffly. He pulls open another door that leads to a dark corridor. As Naomi passes him, he places a gun in her hand.

"There's only one bullet inside," he explains. He's a sandy-haired man with a beer belly and an oversized moustache. Naomi wonders if he's a Kira-supporter, or if he's here out of obligation. Or fear. Or both.

"I understand."

"The Kira-hater is in the middle of the room. You have received your instructions from our Lady?"

"I have," she replies smoothly.

_Kill this person. Do not hesitate. Do not miss. The heart is marked with an 'x'. Shoot to kill. Prove your loyalty to me, and to our god_.

"Fucking psychopath," Rae mutters.

Moustache closes the door, leaving Naomi in the dark with the skeleton. There are five separate sets of blinking lights on the ceiling. She is being monitored here. She does not dare speak to Rae.

She walks to the other end of the corridor and lays her hand against the door.

"Give me strength, Kira, that I might do your bidding," she says dramatically, and pushes her way into the room.

The place is a dungeon, no windows, no lights, filthy floor, and not one single item of furniture save for the chair in the middle of the room. Tied to the chair is a person of indistinguishable gender, clad in baggy robes, face mostly obscured, struggling and moaning.

"_Don' wanna diiiie. Don' wanna diiiie._"

There is something off about her victim, but Naomi doesn't have time to think, because Takada's voice crackles over the loudspeaker.

"Do it _now_!" she instructs. "You must aim for the heart. That is my order!"

"Yes, my Lady," Naomi replies distantly, and raises the gun. She deliberately fumbles a few times, just for good measure, and mutters something about being out of practice. It's reasonable for her to be comfortable with firearms, being an ex-policewoman, but she wants to seem as inert as possible.

The person's lips keep moving, desperate, hollow plea, but the skin is wrong, too shiny, like they're already dead.

Or like…

"No lifespan," Rae informs her, sounding utterly fascinated. "This person isn't alive."

_They were never alive_, _Shinigami_.

Naomi lines up the shot and pulls the trigger, without remorse.

She's hardly going to go to hell for killing a _robot_.

* * *

"According to Rae's report, the robot was extremely realistic," L's voice drones. "Faux-Kira must have some very talented supporters."

"If they're supporters of her, then they're supporters of the real thing," Mail growls. He seems to be permanently attached to that blasted laptop of his. He also seems to be acting like a functional human being.

Not that Raye actually _cares_, right now, with faux-Kira calling his wife by name, and Naomi being all alone and stuck with a psychopath. Or two psychopaths, if you count Rae. Who is apparently crushing on L, or some fucked up shit like that, and sometimes Raye thinks he must be stuck in a nightmare, because everything around him seems so terrifying and surreal.

"Sounds like Naomi's still in the car," Mail announces. "They're bringing her back to base."

"At least she'll be close," Raye mutters, and Mail offers him a bland, confused little smile.

"It makes sense, of course," L continues over the headset. "To acquire so many people and kill them would be excessively risky. This Kira doesn't want to get her hands dirty, any more than her predecessor."

"Shut up, L," Mail hisses. "They're talking."

Raye listens intently, desperate for any word from his wife, some tiny assurance that she's alive and unharmed.

"My mistress says you have done well," the security guard announces. "Your induction was successful."

It's the same guy who showed her around during the initiation, Raye thinks. L would know, of course. L would know what he looks like, since he has access to the damn visual feed. But L can't say anything. L cannot tell him a thing, because Mail will hear.

Once again, L holds all the cards, and Raye just has to trust him.

God, he can't wait to get Naomi away from this place. From this life. From this _boss_.

"This is the most wonderful day of my life," his wife replies serenely, sounding clinically insane.

She's good, goddamnit, she's good. And she has to keep this act up until she can break Takada. And she needs to do _that_ in twelve days, or a metric fucktonne of people are going to pay.

And that's the other problem with fucking bloody Kira, they wind up fighting to protect the same bastards that they're usually trying to arrest. Raye isn't really surprised that this guy broke the President of the United States. Resisting Kira is a difficult concept to compute, sometimes.

But L will never stop resisting, because L takes it personally, and L has to defend his own ego. That, and L is freaking terrified. Which makes Raye feel _so_ much better, because L is never terrified of anything, ever.

"Yes," security guard replies gruffly. "It is. It is the greatest honour of your life."

"Please allow me a moment to pray," Naomi requests politely. "I wish to give thanks, and to ask for our Lord's safe restoration."

"Go ahead."

"Rae should have returned to her side by now," L informs them. "She probably wants to focus on what he has to say."

"Did you give him any instructions?" Raye demands.

_Come on, you bastard. Tell me what's going on. What can you see?_

"Just a reminder that she needs her character to be viewed as reasonably intelligent; a worthwhile confidante. She cannot get too caught up in appearing harmless, or she will come across as psychotically obsessed."

_Yeah, because Kiyomi Takada is really scared of psychopaths, _Raye thinks bitterly. _That's why she's fucking in love with one_.

"Ah, I see."

"Naomi sounds well, though, doesn't she?" L muses, finally throwing him a fucking bone.

_She looks well, you mean_.

"Yeah," Raye chokes. "She does."

* * *

Kiyomi Takada watches the screen with interest. All of her recruits are dedicated and fanatical, in their own different ways, but she's yet to meet someone so very serene and confident.

_You are practically the perfect candidate._

_Is it possible that L sent you?_

But surely the great detective would not sink low enough to send in a woman to reveal her name and place herself at Takada's mercy. No, that isn't possible. Isn't likely, anyway.

Naomi aimed and fired faster than any other recruit before her. She hit the mark, too, which is good, because making new robots is expensive and time-consuming. And everything Naomi does seems to be genuinely motivated by Kira and a desire for justice in the world.

And she's not as pretty as Takada. Always a bonus.

Takada taps her manicured nails on the desk and smiles.

_I think I shall keep a close eye on you, Naomi Penber. Just in case._

_

* * *

_

Moustache takes her to a building matching Rae's description and location, blindfolds her, and takes her through what is either a series of rooms or a hallway with a lot of unnecessary doors.

"You are in the third room on the left, if you remember my diagram," Rae tells her helpfully, as her blindfold is removed.

She is standing in a comfortable-looking office, with an overstuffed sofa behind her and plush carpeting on the floor. In front of her is a giant television screen. Above her are more semi-hidden cameras, and two ceiling-mounted loudspeakers.

Moustache leaves without another word. He's a useful sort of fellow, really. She hopes Takada is paying him well.

"My lady?" she asks hopefully, and waits.

"Yes, my child?" Takada replies, her voice sounding smooth and feminine, despite considerable amplification.

"She thinks she's sophisticated," Rae says, rolling its eyes. "You can play up to that."

_I know what I'm doing_, Naomi thinks.

"Oh, you sound beautiful," she says, with a surprised little laugh. "I suppose you would be, though, wouldn't you? I was thinking about it on the drive over here. You are Kira's angel. No one else has worked so hard for him."

"I am simply another devout worshipper," Takada assures her, but the voice sounds ever so slightly out of breath, like she's fighting down a laugh. "I assure you, if I had angelic powers, I would have used them to reinstate our Lord years ago."

"Still, I envy you," Naomi confesses. "You have done so much for him, while I have done nothing. Tell me how I can make it up to you."

"Do you still have police connections?"

Naomi pretends to consider this, and then sighs heavily.

"I have one friend whom I still contact regularly. Sergeant Bryce. He is not enlightened as I am. He speaks against Kira. Would you have me press him for information?"

"All in good time, my child. Do not ask too many questions."

"Forgive me," Naomi replies contritely, and hangs her head.

"From this day forth, you will take orders from me, and only from me, and without question," Takada tells her. "Is that clear."

"Yes, my Lady."

"Your living arrangements are suitable, for now. You will remain in your flat. I will be aware of everything that you do and say."

_You're going to tap my house. Nice. Guess I must have more potential than Roper, then_.

"Yes, my Lady."

"When you leave the flat, everything you do and everyone you meet ought to be reported to me."

"Without fail, my Lady."

Takada hesitates.

"You really want me to trust you, don't you, Naomi Penber?"

Naomi stares upward, towards the ceiling, curling her lips into a tiny smile.

"That is an honour that I would not take the liberty of desiring, my Lady. All I want…is to help."

"Very good," Takada replies. "You may go."

* * *

Naomi is proving herself to be a better actor than Light himself. She arrives 'home', thanks Moustache mistily for dropping her off, closes the door, prays for an hour straight, cooks a wholesome-looking meal, watches an hour of news, and goes to bed.

Like a good little woman. Maybe the good little woman that Raye always wanted. But that isn't for him to remark upon, really.

"The place is definitely bugged," Rae says, appearing in the seat beside him. "But the bathroom and toilet are clean. She's not at any risk of being discovered."

"All good news, then," L replies, smiling to himself.

"How so? Two bugs in each doorway isn't exactly the picture of trust."

L tears open his sixth bumper-sized bag of boiled sweets, and selects one carefully.

"Because Takada is lonely and frightened. You said so yourself. And we know from experience that she does not bother investigating those she suspects. She simply kills them or limits their knowledge. Monitoring Naomi closely means she wants her close."

"Or suspects her of working for you."

"If that were the case, Naomi would be dead," L points out, sucking his sweet into his mouth. Strangely, Rae looks away.

Perhaps it despises lime-flavoured confectionary?

"You say that so calmly," Rae grates.

"Because I have planned carefully to make sure it does not become true," L replies.

"Yeah, and we all know how well you managed to protect Mats-"

"Please don't bring your personal vendetta into this," L snaps. "As we have both acknowledged, our present situation is extremely delicate. Now is neither the time nor the place for your criticism."

Rae shrugs.

"All right, fair point. Better get back to Naomi. After all, with a whole twelve days of being her only sane companion, I'm guessing I can probably make her see reason about _you_."

L shoves his thumb into his mouth.

"Yes, perhaps you ought to do that," he says softly. "I think it is high time she lived her life, instead of spending every day tied to me. Make sure she is ready to leave, by the end of this mission. You will do a better job of that than I possibly could."

Rae gapes at him.

Red. Maroon. Red.

_Maroon_.

L stares. Something curls, deep and low, in the pit of his stomach.

"I fucking hate you," Rae spits, and vanishes into the night.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+writing ryuk, and the rae-naomi interaction are my two favourite things about this fic right now.

+ again, might be ten or so days before next bit is up. my real life keeps getting in the way of writing, grr.

+ thank you!


	34. Test

notes/warnings

+ swearing. surprise!

+ permanent warning for this arc for implied past sexual assault.

* * *

**Test**

It's okay, it's normal. It's perfectly normal. L is a weapon. L's heart is a weapon. It is perfectly normal for any reasonable person to want to take such weapons for themselves.

Nothing is wrong.

Everything is fine.

L is still disgusting, the worst thing in the world. Everything he does is…

Wrong.

Or at least, he _was_ wrong. Must have been wrong. Inarguably wrong. People become victims of their own stubbornness, and what befalls them isn't anyone else's fault. Inescapable. Blameless.

L is pretending to be good. Pretending to be a hero. Trying to make up for all the people he's tortured and failed to save.

_I did. I did._

And that boy always says _'don't look'_, but what does he know?

* * *

Mail contacts the small group of apparently-trustworthy police officers that L has subcontracted for this mission, and tells them that Bryce's name has been mentioned.

They have all been schooled to lie about Naomi, if prompted by anyone unfamiliar. Nathan Bryce has been given more information than his colleagues. He is the one who knew Naomi 'well', who must lie accurately and in detail. His colleagues have only been given vague details. Like the fact that she ever worked with them. And the fact that she left to pursue her Kira worship.

Takada is almost certain to contact them somehow. If she actually instructs Naomi to capture or harm Bryce, the station is going to fake his death. He has some history of psychologically traumatic experiences, so suicide will not seem suspicious to Takada.

In case she digs deeply.

They have no idea how far she'll go. Raye doesn't even want to think about it.

A precious twenty-four hours pass before Takada contacts Naomi again, and he's pretty sure even L is getting antsy by the time the phone finally rings.

"My Lady," Naomi answers, with sickening delight. "What would you have me do?"

"You sound surprised," Takada replies indulgently. "Did you think I'd forgotten about you?"

"I wasn't sure how long you planned to test me in this way," Naomi admits.

"Careful, N," L murmurs.

"You're intelligent, aren't you?"

Naomi looks graciously confused by the question.

"I consider myself ordinary, my Lady. Except, it seems, in the size of my faith. I would not have thought that it took a particularly extraordinary person to support justice and a safe world, but apparently, it does."

"I understand your feelings completely," Takada replies. "Tell me, Naomi, do you have any friends?"

This tap is really fucking amazing, to be able to pick up both sides of a phone conversation. Watari is a damned genius.

"I was afraid you might ask that. I renounced those that would not join me in my faith. That, unfortunately, turned out to be everyone around me."

She's so _good_ at this. She's so clever and beautiful. Raye hates to think that she'll be stuck in that dusty flat, all on her own, for however long this takes.

L better be fucking _grateful. _He's lucky to have a woman like Naomi around.

Raye is lucky to have a woman like her around. And he can't wait until they finally, _finally_ get to live a normal life.

And Raye's been thinking about a lot of things these past few days, and he thinks he's realized something new about his boss. He thinks he's worked out what bothers him so deeply. It's not just L's social ineptness, or L's hold over his wife, or L's lack of basic hygiene skills. It's not even the danger that L puts them in on a near-daily basis.

It's this as well; L carries Light on his back.

Not physically, of course, because if Light were actually hanging off of L like an overgrown tumour, then they could just shoot him and be done with it. It's metaphorical, and psychological. Even when Light has been rotting in hell for millions of years, L will always remember the man who destroyed him. He won't ever forget, and because of that, he won't ever stop fighting.

And if Light ever does claw his way back into the real world, then L is going to be ground zero. Light is no idiot, and he's bound to take out those who succeeded in defeating him, before he targets anyone else. As far as Raye understands, the key players in Light's demise were Mello, Near, and L. And Light will know that L is still the biggest threat of all.

So, yeah. The plan is to defeat this Takada woman, and then leave. And then they really will have escaped Kira himself.

Then they can be happy. And together. Forever.

"That _is_ unfortunate," Takada says soothingly. "Do you still have any access to police databases?"

Naomi tilts her head thoughtfully, and then smiles.

"I guess that would depend if they've changed all of the codes," she muses. "But I could certainly try."

"Excellent, excellent, all in good time," Takada says warmly. "Let us see how useful you can be, Naomi Penber."

* * *

"Excellent?" Ryuk asks, grinning a little. "You don't usually compliment your underlings, toots."

Takada scowls at him and steels her expression.

"She will be easily manipulated," she replies tersely. "And she seems to hold some intelligence, unlike certain gods I could mention."

"So…it's okay to manipulate and use the people around you even if they are loyal to Kira and have tried their best to be good people?" Ryuk asks, baffled.

"They've consented to it by joining me," Takada replies, taking a sip of her coffee. "Besides, if they truly worship Kira, then they'll be grateful to be of assistance. Whatever it costs them."

"Oh."

Takada has gone back to staring at her security monitors, so Ryuk turns and waves at Rae, who is lurking malevolently in the corner.

_Humans are crazy_, he mouths.

Rae ignores him.

Ryuk sighs heavily, and flops to the floor. Six hours ago, he consumed the very last apple left in the building. He's already starting to get cramps.

He's never been great at understanding humans, and spending roughly five years with Light didn't exactly help. Or maybe it did, since he is now completely aware that humans can lie, and cheat, and murder, and still pretend to be good people.

Or maybe Light really _was_ a good person. A good person who went to hell for being too good, or something. Ryuk is just a death god, after all. What does he know about good and evil?

Besides, judging humans makes Shinigami go slowly insane, if Jas is any indicator. He'll just stick to apples and being entertained. He has no desire to find out the depths of what goes on in these tiny human minds.

Speaking of entertainment, he really misses Emma. More than he expected to. He's never met a human so dedicated to making him happy. He thinks he should stay with her for a long time. He's going to give her his death note, when he's through with Takada.

Of course, Emma keeps asking him where her son is. Some sort of vendetta, or something. Ryuk wishes he could tell her. That would be an _awesome_ fight. L would probably lose. Heh.

"Are you just going to watch her all night?" Ryuk asks. "She's asleep. I don't think she's going to do anything."

Takada rolls her eyes.

"You have no understanding of the desperation of those that pursue me," she replies dismissively. "From what I've heard, L would willingly sacrifice his soul to prevent Light from being restored. I cannot simply presume to trust _anyone_."

"And you want to trust this Naomi, is that right?"

Takada smiles unpleasantly.

"Yes. Perhaps. Or perhaps I simply wish to use her talents, for as long as I can."

"Huh," Ryuk replies.

When he looks at the corner again, Rae has disappeared. Reporting back to L, maybe? Surely there isn't anything to report. Unless Rae is reporting the fact that Takada still doesn't trust Naomi.

Humans are so confusing. Ryuk sort of wishes that they all could just get along. And bulldoze all the cities and plant entire valleys full of apple orchards instead.

He's a Shinigami of simple desires, really.

* * *

It's quite peaceful here. The calm before the storm. Naomi spends her time doing perfectly ordinary, wholesome, law-abiding things. And worshipping Kira.

Her only companions are Takada's voice, and a giant skeleton. Rae can speak freely, even in this godforsaken place. Its voice doesn't seem to carry over to the taps, and Takada certainly cannot hear it.

And its words grow more poisonous by the hour.

"Aren't you angry that he's sent you in here - into the lion's den - while he's safe in his car a few blocks away?"

Naomi clasps her hands in front of her chin, and kneels down on the floor.

"O, Kira," she says softly. "Grant me the courage to accept my destiny, and guide me to where I ought to be."

_Your words do not upset me, Shinigami._

_What else have you got?_

"Right," Rae snorts, and wanders off.

It bounces between her flat, Takada's base, and L. Riling it won't help her situation, but if it puts her in danger, it puts L in danger.

And it will not do that. She is safe, no matter how angry she makes it.

Besides, it is always Rae who starts the fight. Like a petulant child, desperate to beat her, anxious to have the final word. Obsessively trying to _prove_ something.

Eventually, Rae comes back. Rae _always_ comes back.

"You know he loved Matsuda more than you, right? If you were hoping for a relationship with him, I'd give up on that idea. For your own good."

"Help me to be a better person, Kira," Naomi prays. "Absolve me of my jealousy, but more importantly, absolve others who are more burdened than I. Help us all to live in peace."

_If I were hoping for a relationship? Me? I think you're getting confused, now._

"You _bitch_."

Naomi smiles benevolently.

Then she runs to the bathroom to throw up.

* * *

The message comes via the website, at two in the morning. A mostly blank application, with only the 'comments' section filled. She nearly discards it without reading.

'_Kiyomi Takada._

_I have escaped, but we cannot communicate here. The email address below is secure._

_You may ask me three questions to prove my identity._

_Light.'_

Her heart stops dead in her chest. The world around her seems to freeze; lifeless, captured. She cannot…she cannot comprehend…

Light.

_This isn't possible._

* * *

The third day of monitoring, and Takada is still keeping Naomi at arm's length. Winning her over is proving to be more difficult than predicted. They are effectively running out of time. And Naomi's illness has returned in full force.

L is worried. This plan cannot fail. Failure would be disastrous. For everyone involved.

"Things just got stranger," Rae announces, appearing on the seat beside him.

"What happened?"

"Takada just received an application from someone claiming to be Light."

L's vision swims with cold terror, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that he's hyperventilating. Rae thumps him on the back.

"Stop that, will you?" it demands.

L's hands shake. The bag of sweets tumbles to the floor and spills. He cannot think.

"Is it him?" he croaks. "What will I do if it's him?"

"It's _not_ him," Rae says irritably. "It's clearly a trap. Have any other detectives been hired to stop faux-Kira, to your knowledge?"

"You won't protect me from him, will you?" L says quietly. "I've never been able to convince you. If he's back, and I'm without you, I can't. _ I can't_."

He ought to be mortified, but he isn't. The enormity of _Light_ overshadows everything. If those in hell can truly come to the second world at will, then his death is imminent, only a matter of time. Perhaps a matter of seconds. Light is waiting in the wings with a dagger. He can taste the bile, taste the heart attack, taste the defeat.

To die without winning.

Again.

"This is ridiculous," Rae says, and hits him a second time. "Snap out of it! This isn't about Light, it's about Takada. Someone is manipulating her."

"_He's_ manipulating her. He's manipulating everyone. We are all his puppets."

Rae snags him by the collar of his much-abused shirt and drags him forward until they are eye to blood-red eye.

"Listen, dick. I am a Shinigami. A god of death. Light is not here. There is no Light. If Light tries to kill you, I will stop him. I want you to use the note, remember?"

"I know," L gasps, pushing a hand through his hair. He's so tired. He can't do this, and he isn't sure why he ever thought that he could. "I know, but he. He might get around even you. The two of us together, no, but. But divided."

"What the fuck are you talking about? I'm still working with you. And I'm twenty times the detective you are. If Light shows up, I _will_ know."

"You don't even know how Takada got here," L says accusingly.

"What do I have to say to make you pull yourself together?" Rae grits. "You are too useful for me to allow you to be killed at this point. You _know_ I desire the throne more than anything else. Even if I cannot rationalize the appearance of a person, I can stop them from murdering you. Do you believe me?"

L looks away.

_I want to believe you._

_I do. It's just. He's everywhere. He's been everywhere ever since I met him. The monster under my bed._

_Surely a Shinigami can overpower a monster, right? It was a god of death who killed Light, in the end. _

"All right," L says eventually, shoving his panic into a small, mostly-manageable corner of his mind. "We don't tell the others we have any suspicions that this might be the real Light. We presume it's either a detective or an obsessed fan, trying to get to her."

"Thank goodness," Rae groans. "Seriously, why are you such an emotional wreck?"

"I don't know," L says, scooping a handful of sweets off the floor. He shoves all of them into his mouth.

Rae looks away. Apparently it hates all flavours of sweets. L wonders if his diet has been the problem all along. If he stopped eating sugar, would Rae like him again?

But he needs sugar to function. Maybe he could try, when this is over. When everyone is safe. Would he sacrifice his powers of deduction to have Rae back?

He clears his throat, and tries to regain control of the situation.

"What are Takada's plans for faux-Light?" he asks, trying not to flinch on the final word.

"She's going to meet him tomorrow."

Despite the ever-looming threat of Light's return, L's mind goes into overdrive.

Rae has learned things. Things that can be used, now.

Moustache accompanies Takada everywhere. And Naomi has seen Moustache.

Kiyomi is going to meet faux-Light in person. She will be suspicious, too suspicious to give any information away. But hopeful enough to go, perhaps. She will go disguised, heavily armed, and with some death note paper on her.

The other detective, whoever he is, will not gain a valid confession from her.

But L is fifty-two percent sure that she will inform Naomi as to what she intends to do.

"Do you know where they intend to meet?"

"Yes. A bistro on the other side of town. Takada is still wary. She seems to think Light is being held prisoner somewhere."

"No prison bigger than hell," L says, and grins a little. "Thank you, Rae. You have been unendingly useful. We are going to give Kiyomi Takada every reason in the world to trust Naomi. And then we are going to abuse that trust, and take her into custody. And Light will never be able to come back."

"You have a plan, huh?"

"Oh yes," L replies. "I have a plan."

* * *

L is.

L is this _thing_. Like if you took away all of his power, all of his intelligence, and most of his autonomy, he'd make a nice pet.

If he weren't so dangerous, and so utterly morally debased, he'd be worth saving. As he is, he's only useful as a trophy. Killing him is a trophy. Breaking his heart is a trophy. Hijacking that power – _his _ power – for oneself is a trophy.

It isn't difficult to see why people want him, which is the concerning thing.

Breaking him from his ways, and converting him to one's own way of thinking, that must be a trophy, too.

But he's so _angry_, and resentful.

And blind. It's kind of sad.

_I did it, and you. _

_Maybe next time, you'll cheer._

* * *

Takada is suspicious. Since she received that message, she's been practically vibrating with terror.

Every question, answered correctly.

_Who was the third member of our group, and what did you call him._

'_Teru Mikami. T.'_

_What was the real name of the man who kidnapped me?_

'_Mihael Keehl.'_

_How did I die?_

'_You burned. I told you to burn.'_

But is that really enough? The problem is this; she and Light held no special secrets, no easy way to identify each other. The things she knows, plenty of other people might know too, by now. Who knows how many details were released in the first world, after they both died.

And yet, she agreed to meet him. In _person_. Behind a mask, of course, but she will go. She has to go. She has to be sure that it is not him. If it is a trap, then she will know. She has supporters. She will not go alone. But she will go. Tomorrow.

Because if it is Light, if he has escaped, then Jason will be furious. And if that is the case, then she will not have much time. She has to get to him. Together, they will be able to ruin Jason once and for all.

And then bring about their perfect world.

And nothing will ever come between them, ever again. No L. No Misa. No Mello. Nothing.

Terror and hope. That is all she feels. Terror and hope. She is stuck in this place, frightened of her own shadow, surrounded by fools and murderers. They will be useful, until Kira is reinstated. Then they will be disposed of.

She has no friends here. No one will truly care if she perishes. They will mourn her ideals, and her power, but not _her_.

Even forlorn, petrified, and desperately hopeful, there is no good excuse for picking up her phone and calling Naomi. But she does, anyway. She needs someone to know. Just in case.

"Yes, my Lady?"

Naomi is fresh from a shower, hair wet, skin waxy and pale. The security cameras produce high-quality images. Takada can make out the water droplets trickling down her nose.

"Your illness still haunts you, Naomi?"

Naomi turns her eyes to the ceiling.

"Perhaps Kira will cure me, if he sees fit," she says thoughtfully.

"I will be sure to put in a good word for you," Takada tells her. "Listen, I want you to know something. Tomorrow, I am going to meet someone. Someone who is either an imposter, or our Lord. I want you to know this, in case I do not return."

"Would you have me accompany you, my Lady?" Naomi asks, sounding aghast.

Takada feels strangely mollified. Concern. Concern from a stranger, who perhaps works for L. If this is L's trap, then Naomi will confirm that Takada intends to go.

And yet, this woman seems so earnest.

Some people are tremendous actors. But surely there are innocent people in the world, yet. Good people. People to save.

_Everything is a test, Naomi. Will you pass?_

_Will I pass_? _Will I save Light? Can I actually beat Jason?_

"No."

"Then," Naomi announces dreamily. "I will pray for you."

"Very good," Takada says smoothly. "You can call this number if you need anything while I am gone. You may visit the pharmacy down the road if you need medication."

"Thank you," Naomi wafts. "You are very kind. I take it that you trusting me with this information is part of my screening, yes?"

"You are clever," Takada tells her. "Do not be too clever."

Naomi gasps.

"I am sorry, my Lady!"

Takada disconnects with a click, and turns away from the screens. Her staff will watch over Naomi while she is gone. They are loyal, in that way. In most ways. Only the most loyal stay by her side.

She will not sleep so much as a second tonight, she knows.

* * *

"She has contacted Naomi," L tells them, sounding a little excited. "Things are going according to plan."

"For once," Mail intones.

"You sound so pleased with yourself," Raye snarls into his headset. "Might I ask a question, oh great detective? Why didn't _you_ think to impersonate Light to lure her out?"

"I do not believe such a tactic is likely to lead to an arrest," L replies. "I do not think faux-Kira is foolish. She _will_ not approach an imposter. Don't forget she has the Shinigami eyes, and the probable assistance of a Shinigami. She will know immediately if she is dealing with the real Light."

"And of course, it won't be the real Light, so she'll cut and run," Raye groans, rubbing at his face. He feels disgusting. The whole vehicle is starting to smell like Mail, which is akin to smelling like nicotine steeped in day-old sweat.

"Yes," L says quietly.

Deep down, Raye seethes. Because he's one hundred fucking percent sure that L is lying. L never thought of this. L does everything the hard way.

He's sick to death of his boss. The end of this case cannot come soon enough.

"Your role in tomorrow's events is vital, Raye," L continues. "Do you remember the instructions I gave you?'

"Keep my mask on, keep my head down, keep my gun obvious, and take orders from the bloody skeleton," he replies darkly. "Got it."

"There is no need for that attitude," L says, sounding bewildered. "If faux-Kira is not frightened enough of faux-Light, your part will be necessary for this undertaking to have any success at all."

"I know that," Raye hisses. "I just don't like anything about this situation. It's too risky."

_But you don't care. You don't care about anyone._

_Sometimes, I almost feel bad for that Shinigami, having feelings for you. It must be like having feelings for a brick wall._

_Or for Light_.

Raye isn't spiteful enough to say that out loud, of course.

"If you're really bothered by it, I'll go," Mail offers. "I'm not afraid of being shot at."

"No," L says firmly. "I need you to stay here and monitor the feed. Raye doesn't have the skills to fix any networking problems that might occur."

L is nothing if not a damn good liar, after all. And Mail in a position where he'd possibly lay eyes on Takada would be disastrous, in so many ways.

Raye tries not to think about how he must feel. About what it's like to lose the one you love, permanently.

Naomi promised him no separation would ever be permanent, but what does she know? If it happened to Mail, it might happen to them. Things might go wrong. Raye might wind up in hell. He's never been as good-hearted as his beautiful wife.

Naomi wouldn't grieve for him. Not forever. Not the way Mail does.

Mello is a really fucking lucky bastard, wherever he is.

"I'll go," Raye tells L loudly. "It's not _me_ I'm worried about."

* * *

"You're not telling the others about the questions, either," Rae notes. "To stop them from panicking?"

"Whoever answered those questions clearly knew a lot about Light," L replies tersely. "Otherwise, Takada wouldn't be meeting up with them. I've contacted Watari to run checks on prominent local and international detectives. Someone out there is coming up with other strategies against this woman. Or…"

"Don't say it," Rae replies. "Seriously. I told you. He's not here, and I won't let him kill you."

And there is his one little bit of peace. Rae will protect him.

God, he misses brown-eyed Rae. He misses his friend. He misses his ally.

He is mildly concerned by the way his heart leaps whenever Rae's eyes deviate even slightly from their normal cherry-red.

He is extremely concerned that this phenomenon is happening at all. Rae told him it was fixed. Rae told him it was better. If it starts losing its ability to move quickly, and read names, and fly, and whatever else…at a time like this…

Naomi would be at serious and excessive risk.

"I know," L whispers.

But he cannot help thinking that he'd really like Matsuda by his side, right now. Preferably with a gun.

Just in case.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ this chapter is short because I went to WICKED this weekend, and it was awesome. no apologies today!

+ so it seems I may be moving house over the coming weeks. will try to maintain weekly updates, no promises though, okay?

+ thank you!


	35. Undercurrent

notes/warnings

+ yay swearing.

+ implied past sexual abuse.

+ return of mr second-person-italics.

+ in light of concerns expressed in recent reviews, I just wanted to reiterate that **there will be NO canon character/own character pairings in this fic**. the own characters are intended to be a supporting cast only. they may have feelings for canon characters, but they will not have romantic relationships. for example, either Jas/Mello will never happen, or Jas is actually a canon character in disguise. same goes for Rae/L. and, I dunno, Roper/Mail, or any others that might be worrying people. this story is about the canon characters, I promise.

* * *

**Undercurrent**

"_While you were sleeping, someone broke into the storeroom," Near announces blandly. "Were you aware of that?"_

_He doesn't move from the spot. He doesn't look at you. He never looks at you._

_No-one ever looks at you. Except with distaste._

"_Yes," you reply, and you're already pissed off. You make mistakes all the fucking time. Near doesn't have to drag you in here and humiliate you. You know you're a fucking loser. You know!_

_You wish, sometimes, that he'd just throw you in a cell and be done with it. It would easier – and more honest – than keeping you around as a glorified security guard._

_A glorified, untrustworthy security guard._

"_You were supposed to be watching the entrances," Near continues, one pale hand guiding a rocket through the air. "Did you forget that, Mihael?"_

_Everyone calls you by name. You're not worth protecting. You don't deserve a nickname. You are well aware of all of these things. And yet, hearing Near say your real name sends you into a blinding, helpless rage._

_He's got no right. He's tiny and he uses people and he keeps you around just to make you miserable. He's not great, like everyone says. He can't look after himself. He'd be nothing without L. He's no L._

_He's ten thousand times the detective you'll ever be, but you hate him. You hate him more than anything._

_It was him that…god. It was him that introduced Jasmine to Matt. You can't ever forgive him for that._

_And L chose him over you._

_And even though he's the better choice - by miles and miles the better choice - you can't help but hate him for that, too._

_He's taken everything away from you. Everything._

_Almost everything. You've still got the Jeevases. You still get to see Gemma once a week, and Matt still chats to you on the internet every other night. And Jasmine comes over for coffee on a regular basis, and she's always excessively kind to you._

_Smug bitch._

_And once a month, you are allowed to visit them. All of them. Together. Your family._

_You wish._

"_I didn't forget," you grit, and you hate admitting this shit to him. If you had a gun, you would cheerfully shoot yourself in the head right now, just to avoid this conversation._

_You don't have a gun, of course. Psychopathic losers can't be trusted with firearms._

"_So what happened?" Near asks, twirling his hair around the propeller of a plastic helicopter._

"_I told you, I can't do this," you growl. "It's…it's too hard."_

_Your brain doesn't work properly. Your body doesn't work properly. You don't know why you fall asleep all the time, why your strength has disappeared, why your head is thick and woolly whenever you try to think. You've been to doctors. There's nothing that they can do._

_You hate everything. You hate your life. _

"_Everything seems to be too hard for you, lately," Near comments. "It's a pity L has ordered us to keep you around. But then, I suppose if you'd had more self control, you wouldn't have learned our names in the first place. We could have gotten rid of you as soon as the Kira case became difficult. Life would have been much easier for both of us, don't you think?"_

_You clench your fists so hard your nails cut tiny semicircles into your palms. You can't even remember exactly how you stumbled across their names, but you were obviousy prying, because that information is - and always has been - ridiculously classified._

_And yet, some part of you still wants to believe that you were told their names on merit. That you earned that trust, somehow, a long time ago. It's like you have these faint memories of something else, some other time, some other place._

_No, dreams. Not memories, dreams. That's all they are. This is the reality. You, and your incompetence, and Near._

_And Near is vile. He's tiny and white and awful and no one will ever, ever love him. No matter what._

_No one will ever love you, either, but that doesn't matter. Your heart is wasted._

"_Do you expect me to apologise?" you demand._

"_I don't expect social graces from you," Near replies condescendingly. "To be honest, I expect very little from you. But I do expect you to protect those around you, to the best of your ability. Lately, you haven't even been trying."_

"_I always try!"_

_Fuck him. Fuck him, he doesn't know how difficult things are for you. He doesn't know. He has no right to pass judgement!_

_You know you're an awful person. You don't need him to say it._

"_Well then, you had better start trying harder, because I have made an executive decision," Near informs you. And then he raises his head and casts his eyes over you, just once. He grins, smugly, unpleasantly, like he's just won some private war._

_Against you._

"_If you make one more mistake, Mihael, I am going to categorise you as unfit for contact with at-risk employees."_

_You spool the words slowly around your brain, like they'll somehow magically make sense._

_You used to be so smart. You used to be able to read people; their personalities and hopes and fears, all gleaned from a few moments of conversation. Matt used to say you had magic powers._

_You've never been able to read Matt, though. Or you couldn't, back when you were kids. He's pretty easy these days. He loves his wife and daughter, he's excessively kind, and he wants justice and a safe world. And top-of-the-range gaming consoles. Easy._

_You wish your life was so easy._

_You wish you knew what went wrong._

_You wish the seams in the sky were real. That this life was some place you could escape from._

"_What?"_

"_I'll spell it out for you, will I?" Near asks casually. "If you mess up one more time, I am going to prevent you from seeing the Jeevases. Ever again."_

_You see your whole world crumbling right in front of you._

"_You can't do that!" you protest. "You can't do that, I'll die! They're…they're all I have!"_

"_You shouldn't be seeing them anyway," Near continues. "I disapprove of Matt pandering to you. The way you feel about him is repulsive, and he should put as much distance as possible between the two of you. Since he is resistant to that concept, I have allowed you to maintain contact. But the next time you fail at a task, that privilege will be revoked. Matt is aware of this, and he's agreed to support my decision. Isn't that nice of him?"_

"_Fuck you," you say darkly. "Fuck you, you…you worm! You…you dickhead!"_

_The rage that consumes you is powerful and huge. You can't control yourself. _

_You don't want to control yourself. You want to slam his face into the fucking floor. Repeatedly._

_You manage to get six paces closer to him before security arrives and throws you out. _

_Your life is over._

_Your days are numbered._

_You cannot ever, ever screw up again._

_But you know that you will._

* * *

Morning rolls around, painfully bright after another sleepless night. Takada spends an extra twenty minutes on her hair. Then she checks the tiny piece of death note hidden in her watch, and starts making preparations to leave.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Ryuk asks brightly. "It could be a trap. I'd hate for anything to happen to you."

He's lying, of course.

"If you truly cared for me, you would tell me whether or not this is the real Light."

Ryuk shrugs.

"How can I tell? I've only seen the same email you've seen."

"Then why don't you go and meet him in my place?" she snaps, obsessively checking the locks on her bedroom door.

"Eh? Sure, I can do that. But how will you know if I'm lying? Plus, if it is the real Light, don't you think he'll be reluctant to wait around? By the time I go and come back to report to you, he'll be gone."

Takada takes her mask from the top drawer of her desk. It is expensive, beautifully-made, and fits seamlessly against her skin. When she wears it, she looks completely unlike herself.

This is a risk. This is dangerous. But isn't this what she is all about?

Anything for her Light.

"Are all Shinigami as useless as you?" she asks, distractedly. Ryuk has become part of the furniture; just an annoying and talkative fixture.

She calls her security team on the upper floor.

"Teams A and B, please continue to monitor this building. Michael and Theo? I want you to monitor Naomi, Reid, and the other disciples of interest. The rest of you are to monitor the closed-circuit television footage from the area around Bradley's Bistro, as we discussed yesterday. Bronson will be with me. Margaret, Gree, and Leah will be stationed nearby."

"Yes, my Lady," comes the chorus.

Most of her security officers are men. They patrol the compound and monitor all the camera feeds. They are also restricted to rooms separate to her living quarters. Bronson is the only exception; she keeps him close because he is perceptive, talented, strong, and thoroughly gay.

She does not employ or associate with any men who have white-blonde hair and beards. No-one has noticed this, of course.

She doesn't like men. She doesn't trust them. But she especially doesn't want to be reminded of Jason.

She needs Light around to protect her, that's what. Once he has returned to her side, her life will be wonderful. All she has to do is work hard, right now, and her future is secure. Guaranteed.

The employees she keeps close to her – her snipers and her spies and her assistants – are all female. Ryuk occasionally refers to them as her 'harem', if he's in a particularly retarded mood. But the truth is this: she can sleep when she's surrounded by women. None of them are going to violate her. They might kill her, sure, if they're murderously-inclined or spies sent by L, but they won't…

They won't…

What he did…

Jason is evil and everything he does is evil and she will see him destroyed. Then, maybe, the nightmares will stop. And the paranoia will stop. And the fears will stop. Everything will be just fine, she can get past this. It will only be bad for a little while.

Just a little while.

This Naomi, she needs to prove herself trustworthy. She's useful. And that'll be one more nail in Jason's coffin, Takada is certain.

"You okay, toots?" Ryuk asks loudly, interrupting her reverie.

She forces a smile.

"Absolutely fine," she replies.

She stuffs her dress with as many pistols as feasible, and goes.

She can't be weak, after all. No matter what, she cannot be weak.

* * *

Rae bursts in while she's watching the morning news. Naomi carefully doesn't react to its presence, of course.

"Takada has gone," it reports.

She nods dutifully. Today, as planned, she has been especially sick. She has been weak and pale, stumbling into walls, unable to consume anything more substantial than tea.

Truth be told, today is one of her better days. But Takada doesn't know that, and neither do the guards. Naomi has excellent control over her body, for the most part.

And L knows how to use his resources well.

She switches off the tiny television, picks up her phone, and contacts Takada's base.

"Yes?" an unfamiliar voice answers.

"Oh no," Naomi says with exaggerated dismay. "Is my Lady not available?"

"She's presently indisposed," the man informs her. He's definitely not Moustache, but he's probably another one of the security guard.

"I've called too late," Naomi says sadly. "I had been wondering if our Lady wanted me to do some research into the local police force. I thought I might be able to help uncover the truth about the man she is meeting today."

There is a momentary pause on the other end of the phone.

"She has told you a lot, it seems," the guard replies, grudgingly. "But I will not tell you any more. There are no instructions for you today. In any case, you do not appear to be capable of fulfilling demanding tasks at this time."

_She's told me a lot, has she?_

"That's heartening, at least," Rae mutters. It's scary how clearly she can follow the Shinigami's thoughts.

Of course, Rae tends to have a fairly one-track mind. It's probably either thinking about getting L to use the death note, or. Well, just getting L.

And now she is making terrible jokes. Apparently this solitary confinement has affected her mind.

"Yes, I was considering getting myself some more ginger from the pharmacy," she says mistily. "I do not advocate the use of therapeutic drugs in most circumstances, but I want to be able to function my very best for Kira."

"As do we all," the man replies. "You have already been given permission to leave if you need to, Naomi."

"Yes," Naomi agrees. "Yes, I have."

Perfect. That conversation couldn't have gone better if L had scripted both sides.

* * *

The plan isn't ideal, of course.

If L hasn't judged Kiyomi Takada perfectly, then Naomi may wind up being released from her services.

Or dead.

And if it really is Light, then. Then _he'll_ probably wind up dead, too. He wonders if Light will return with more supernatural powers. If he'll be able to pinpoint L's exact location, or kill him just by thinking about it, or hide his face and worm his way back into L's life just to fuck it all up as much as possible.

L doesn't even want to think about it.

He is hunched over the video feed. Naomi is driving, but her destination is not the pharmacy. She's breaking rules. That is their strategy.

Naomi is prepared to sacrifice everything for Takada. Even her beloved Kira.

And Takada, well, Takada might feel obliged to do the same. Or she might fall in love, if Rae's estimations are correct.

What does an arrogant, idealistic Shinigami prince know about human love, anyway?

_Not much_, L answers himself, bitterly.

Rae is with Takada now, and it will stay with her unless there are unforeseen problems. If something does go wrong, it is up to Rae to decide whether to inform Naomi first, or go back and reassess the situation with L.

This whole case is pivoting on Rae. It's the first time all of them have really worked together, as a team.

And they cannot fail. L keeps reminding himself of that. They cannot fail.

The path to the pharmacy will take Naomi right past Bradley's Bistro. All she needs is to see something. Anything. Say….Moustache. Accompanying a beautiful and masked woman. Any Kira-supporter knowing what Naomi knows would presume her to be faux-Kira.

So simple. So easy. Naomi will stop, abandon her own errands, and dive in to save Takada. From a mysterious masked man carrying a gun that she recognizes as FBI-standard. A masked man who is definitely not Light Yagami, because he'll try and shoot Takada.

And Takada will flee. With Naomi. With her newfound guardian and friend. L doesn't _like_ toying with people's emotions to such a cruel extent, but he has little other choice. Besides, emotional wounds heal over time. Heart attacks are forever.

Even if Light is here, perhaps L can stop Takada from meeting him.

_Light is not here. Takada cannot meet him, because he is in hell. He is in a tiny, tiny locked box, and he cannot reach us._

_Oh please, he cannot reach us._

L's phone rings. The screen shows '_Grint Street Police Station'_. His point of contact with Nathan Bryce and the other police officers assisting him with Naomi's back-story.

_Why would they be calling at a time like this?_ he wonders, and answers the phone.

"Yes?"

"There's…someone who'd like to speak to you, Mr Smith," Bryce says quickly, without any small talk at all. "He wanted your number, but I told him we'd connect the call instead."

As far as the station is concerned, L is Bert Smith, a detective to rival Eraldo Coil. But not L, because that would be presumptuous.

"Someone who knows my name?" L queries, fascinated, his eyes never leaving the screen in front of him.

Naomi is approximately five minutes away from the bistro. She must have his full attention at all times.

"Someone who wanted to speak to the leader of this investigation," Bryce says helplessly.

"Someone who knows about my investigation?" L repeats stupidly. "Did they contact you directly, Nathan?"

"Yes, sir. Me. They found my office extension number. No one else knows that you're chasing after…after you-know-who."

_After faux-Kira_.

Bryce knows some details. It was necessary to buy his support and his silence. Whoever this is, they've done their research. They're _tracking_ him. They're trying to find Bert Smith, out of all of the detectives targeting faux-Kira.

"Put him through," L says, because he's hardly going to turn down a chance to identify this person who has violated his privacy so.

There is a _click_, and a few high pitched sounds, and then a voice.

"Mr Smith, am I correct?"

The voice sounds as mechanical and filtered as his own. Damn.

"You are correct."

"That's good. You can call me Buzz. I'm presently investigating the activities of a woman I believe might be faux-Kira."

_Oh, no you aren't._

_Out of my territory, you…you punk_.

"I see," L replies blandly.

"There is a strange thing, Mr Smith. I have set a trap for this woman, but there appears to be a man here unassociated with me. Judging by his mask and the weapon he carries, I'd say his aim is to scare her away from the person she is supposed to be meeting."

L feels as if an enormous weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

"Was it you who sent her that email, Buzz?" he asks quietly.

"You know about that? I guess that means you do have a man inside, then," Buzz deduces.

_Impressive_.

"That is correct," he concedes.

"I see. Unfortunately, we've been unable to launch a successful applicant at this stage. Since you have, I will step down from this investigation and let you take over, Mr Smith. I was going to apprehend your friend with the gun, but you've obviously got something in mind. My plan only had a ten percent chance of success, anyway."

"You use percentages to clarify your uncertainty?" L manages, with a little laugh. "Trying to impersonate big-league detectives, are you?"

_But if you aren't Light, then…_

_And you don't sound like Light._

_God, what would Light sound like, these days?_

"Not at all."

"How were you able to answer her questions correctly?" L demands.

"I was lucky," Buzz replies. "I am more recently dead than Miss Takada, and some things have been made public in the first world. People know who and what Kira was. Everyone knows his face. If he returns, there will be pandemonium."

"I know that," L snaps. "So you're telling me that intimate details of Takada's life are published in several volumes, are you?"

There is no risk in revealing that he suspects her. After all, this guy is already convinced that Takada is faux-Kira, it seems.

"I worked on the case, for a little while," Buzz admits.

"Who are you?" L replies sharply.

_You worked on the Kira case? Did you work with me?_

"And I guessed one of the answers, too," Buzz continues, ignoring him. "It seems Light really did have her kill herself. Such a terrible thing to do. But since my last statement made you enquire as to who I was, I presume you worked that case too?"

"I imagine half the crime experts in the world were working on it before the end," L says tersely.

"An excellent point. I suppose that really doesn't narrow anything down for either of us, does it? I hope the scenario I've set up is useful for you. I will keep my word and refrain from this case."

L feels strange. On one hand, Buzz is clearly trying to wrangle his identity out of him. On the other hand, an ex-Kira-case-worker sent that email. Not Light. Never Light.

Of course. He knew all along. Light can't come back. No god in their right mind would release something _that_ terminally evil onto the general population.

"I hope you do," he replies. "You have caused me some trouble as it is."

"I apologise for that," Buzz tells him. "I'm sure we'll talk again, sometime. Goodbye, L."

The phone slips from L's fingers. He cups it in his open palm and stares at it.

Buzz was guessing. Is guessing. Is apparently one of those infuriating detectives who formulates a theory out of nothing and then attempts to prove it right, one way or the other.

_Fuck you, _L thinks. _You don't know who I am at all._

_And the next time our paths cross, maybe I'll defeat you and take your identity too, Buzz_.

_Because you're not the hotshot you think you are._

_And I've got a Shinigami on my side_.

And then none of that matters, because Naomi is pulling into the bistro car-park, and Takada and Moustache are exiting their vehicle, and Raye is waiting in the shadows, just out of view of the closed circuit cameras.

The only thing that matters is that they _get this right._

* * *

This is wrong.

Everything feels wrong.

Kiyomi checks over her shoulder discreetly. Margaret is a few feet behind her, watching the crowd carefully. She is an excellent shot, and she has a tiny gun hidden inside the index finger of her glove. Kiyomi has access to all the very best gadgets, of course. She has money – donations from rich supporters – and she dutifully uses every cent to try and ensure Light's safe return. And then she has talented supporters, people who provide her with electronics and equipment and skill.

And they are useful, but she can't trust any of them. Not really.

Gree is already inside the bistro. She's not as good a marksman, but she's got tremendous powers of observation. Leah is still in the car, the back-up plan.

Right now, Kiyomi needs to live. If she doesn't live, then she can't save Light. And that bastard won't tell anyone else he has Light prisoner. She is his only chance.

Everything is riding on her.

"All clear, my lady," Bronson murmurs.

Her mask is on. No-one can see her face. Under her dress, her chest is covered in bulletproof metal. But there are ways. There are always ways. Her head isn't wrapped in metal. People don't need a death note to kill other people.

It's a busy area. Light chose well. People everywhere. _Men_ everywhere. She tracks their hands and their arms as they pass. So strong. So powerful. God, she needs Light here to protect her.

Gree gestures twice. _No one suspicious. No one fitting Light's description_.

Margaret falls back into the crowd, exactly the way she's been instructed. Kiyomi barely notices.

"He's not here," she says softly.

And then a man actually _approaches_ her, and she gets as far as opening her watch before she realizes that he's not actively trying to kill or molest her. He just looks lost.

"Can I help you, sir?" Bronson asks, a hint of threat in his voice. He's a useful find, really. But she doesn't think he'd stay if she stopped paying him.

Filthy, mercenary scum that he is. Kiyomi snaps her watch shut, annoyed.

"I have a message," the man says quietly. "I have a message from Light."

Kiyomi's hand drops away from her face, and she gapes at him. He's tall and dark-haired and speaks with an American accent.

And there's…oh god. There's no name over his face. There's no _name_ over his face.

He's got a fucking mask on.

Then he's. He's not here for Light. He's here for whoever laid this trap.

For her.

Kiyomi freezes, unable to speak, unable to move. No-one has actually attacked her before. Not since that blonde kid threw her in the back of a truck and drove until she killed him.

In the confines of her own mind, she screams. And screams.

_No! Light! No, I had so much more I…no! NO! DO YOU HEAR ME! I CAN'T, I CAN'T! NO!_

And still she cannot move.

The barrel of the gun is right _there_, in his sleeve. He's not even trying to hide it.

It's too late to run away. Too late to reach for her own gun. And Bronson hasn't even _realized_, the useless scrum.

_NO! NO! NO! NO!_

"I don't think so," a new voice drawls, female and dangerous and coming from right behind her attacker.

And there's no mistaking the _click_ of a safety catch coming undone.

The man hesitates, his fingers still on the trigger. Margaret hasn't noticed them yet. Takada is going to fire her once she gets back to base.

_If_ she gets back to base.

"Let her go, or I'll kill you. I swear, I'll kill you!"

Takada lifts her head, struggling to regain the power of speech.

"Naomi?"

"I'm sorry, my Lady," Naomi says sharply. "I was on my way to the pharmacy. I recognized Moust…the man you were with. I knew you had to be you. And then I realised this clout carrying an FBI-issue firearm. I just had to stop. I thought you might be in danger."

"You work for her, huh?" the man drawls. "Naomi, is it? Don't you know what this woman is doing?"

In one neat moment, Naomi spins around him and stops right in front of his chest. Front and center.

_You idiot_! Kiyomi thinks, panicked. _He's seen your face, now_.

And then she realizes that Naomi is between his gun and herself.

"I'll die for my Lady," Naomi says fiercely. "Just you try me."

_No_!

_Wait, why do I care? Why are you…_

_Why did you do that?_

"People are watching," the man says nastily. "And there are more officers on the way. You might as well give up now, Kira."

"People are watching," Naomi agrees. "Are they about to see you kill two women - one of whom is completely unarmed - right in front of them?"

"I'm taking you prisoner!"

"Not if I shoot first!"

In the time it takes the man to snort derisively, Naomi knees him in the stomach. For a thin, sick woman, she seems to pack a surprising quantity of power. The man crumples a little, still grappling for his gun.

"For Kira's sake, my Lady, _run_!" she yells.

Bronson practically has to drag her away, even when the FBI agent opens fire. But she regains the use of her legs when Naomi catches up to them. And Kiyomi doesn't really understand that, either.

* * *

"I'm impressed that he managed to shoot so convincingly while completely missing you," Rae comments, curling up on an empty car seat. "He's a good shot. Is that why you married him?"

Naomi doesn't react, of course. Not with Takada sitting right next to her.

"Are you hurt, my Lady?" she asks tremulously.

"Are you _stupid_, Naomi Penber?" Takada demands. Her mask has slipped, making her face look bizarre and disproportionate.

"I did what I had to do," Naomi says cheerfully. "I'll do anything for Kira. And as far as I'm concerned, you and Kira are the same person. After all, you're the only link we have."

"I didn't _ask_ you to die for me," she snaps.

"You didn't ask me to be there at all," Naomi replies. "Why did your guards not notice his gun, my Lady? Why didn't anyone else help you?"

"No one else here is a retired police officer of your skill," Takada replies, a little tersely, and Naomi chalks the conversation up as a victory then and there.

"She was impressed," Rae says unnecessarily. "And L will be thrilled to know that her guards are incompetent at best."

"Thank you, my Lady."

"That was _not_ a compliment!" Takada chides. "The FBI know your face. You are in terrible danger."

"And in compensation, you are alive," Naomi says rapturously, clasping her hands.

"You know, you should win some sort of award for acting," Rae comments.

_You never met Light Yagami, did you_? Naomi thinks.

"I shall have to have you transferred to the base," Takada fusses. "There will be no other safe place for you now."

"Won't I be in your way? You'd have to go around with a mask on at all times. That doesn't sound very comfortable, my Lady."

Okay, she's good. She's very good. She's at the top of her game today. Maybe because she's finally been allowed to leave that tiny little flat.

One can only pray to false gods and antagonize Shinigami for so long before one gets horrendously bored, after all. And it was good to see Raye again, however briefly.

And now, Takada respects her. Cares about her, even. L is a genius.

She'd be interested to know who false-Light was, because they never showed up. She wonders if they got in touch with L.

She wonders whose side they're on.

Takada scowls hard, the visible part of her forehead wrinkling furiously above the mask. She probably thinks Naomi can't see her expression.

"You've passed your security clearance," she replies curtly. "And you've proven your loyalty today, if not your good judgment. Living at base means you are privy to my face, Naomi Penber."

"Excellent," Rae murmurs. "I'll tell L we're in."

"Thank you, my Lady," Naomi says serenely. "The honour is all mine."

* * *

L shakes his head, and then twists it from side to side. He feels a little heavy, like he's coming down with a cold.

This…no. Something isn't right. Something fundamental.

He just sent Raye out to meet Takada, and orchestrated a fight between Naomi and her husband. All kinds of things could have gone wrong. Raye could have missed and shot his wife. Naomi could have arrived too late, or too early. Takada could have been suspicious of Naomi showing up at just the right time.

Takada could have…

Takada…

Takada damn well _should_ have been suspicious! Why wouldn't she be suspicious, of Naomi who just happened to know that faux-Light was a trap? Of Naomi, who's only just shown up? Of Naomi, who is both smart and an ex police officer?

And that's still not the thing that bothers him the most. The thing that bothers him the most is that he _thought_ it was a good plan. He sat down and thought of all the weak points, and he _still_ went ahead with it. He still decided it was the best possible thing to do. And Raye, and Mail agreed. _Rae_ agreed.

A momentary lapse in common sense in one person is explicable. In four, though, it is…

What? Witchcraft?

This heavy feeling that his mind is being blinded and fooled. That someone else is controlling him, just a little, steering him in an odd direction.

Could it be Kira?

And Buzz. Who the fuck is Buzz? And how convenient of him to contact L in such a way that L can't even prove he existed.

L scrubs at his face the way Matsuda used to do. He feels like someone is manipulating the events around him. He feels like…like there's a script somewhere. Like Naomi always had to apply to join faux-Kira, and like Raye always had to go and threaten Takada today.

Wait. He's felt like this before.

* * *

"You did well," Mail says politely, when Raye finally deems it safe to approach the car.

"Fuck off," he replies. "I just opened fire on my _wife_. I don't need your fucking _comments_."

"Whatever," Mail says, and goes back to tapping at his keyboard.

He doesn't need to hear Raye angsting about Naomi, who is alive, in the second world, and very much in love with him. Mail isn't jealous. He's pretty sure he's not physiologically _capable_ of something as emotionally complex as jealousy. He just doesn't think Raye has any right to complain.

No matter what happens, he's never going to see Mello again. He can wear his clothes, and don his boots, and impersonate him until the world ends, but Mello can never come back.

Mail touches the rosary.

_For the love of fucking god, please look after him_, he thinks, because he's given up on flowery, standardized prayers. _Please just keep him safe. Give him chocolate. Keep him happy. Take…take every tiny good thing you've ever given me, and use them to keep him safe. Please_.

L's voice crackles over his headphones.

"Mail, can I ask you a question?"

"Yup."

"Do you remember Holland?"

Mail frowns.

_What now? Holland? I don't think we've ever worked a case there. It's a pretty peaceful place, for the most part_. _Not a lot of crime._

_Why the fuck is he asking me?_

"Uh…not particularly. I've never even visited the place," he murmurs.

"The case," L says patiently. "The case with the gorgon. It happened last year."

"Wasn't that ages ago?" Raye interrupts, impatiently. "I can barely remember it. Besides, don't we have more important things to be focusing on right now?"

"You can barely remember it?" L asks quizzically. "But you have an excellent memory, Raye Penber."

"Well, forgive me if I'm a little fucking out of sorts!" Raye says hotly.

"Do you remember Grace, Mail?" L asks.

"Sure," Mail replies. "Little girl we took in. She was killed by…um…"

He's not good at remembering shit like this.

"How was she killed again?" he asks, giving up.

"The gorgon killed her," L says somberly.

"Really?" Raye asks. "Wasn't she just killed by…you know."

"Ordinary stuff," Mail supplies.

"Yeah. That's it. Ordinary stuff," Raye agrees.

"I see," L says, sounding strangely distressed. "That is not important right now, of course. I apologise for bringing it up. Tell me, what did you think of your most recent mission, Raye?"

"It sucked. Next time, _you_ can go and shoot at someone you love."

"Ah, so you think it endangered Naomi unnecessarily? Why did you not mention this earlier?"

_He's in a strange fuckin' mood today_, Mail notes blithely. Really, L asking for criticism? The Shinigami must be eating away at his confidence.

"It wasn't a bad plan, this is just a bad fucking situation," Raye growls. "Don't twist my words!"

"So we are agreed it was a good plan," L says. "Thank you. Please keep monitoring the taps and wait for my next instruction."

"Weird," Raye mutters. "Sometimes I think he's starting to lose the plot."

For once, Mail has to agree with him.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ still moving! so far I have an empty unit with a rice cooker in it and nothing else! I am nearly as good at moving as I am at writing, clearly. so expect another week of tardiness and late updates. my apologies.

+ thank you, thank you.

+ also, the amazing Moss E has made me FANART for this ridiculous fic, because she is just too awesome for words. if you'd like to see it, there is a link in my user profile. (there is, in fact, another piece of fanart for this fic by another amazing person, but I don't yet have her permission to link it to anyone).


	36. Security

notes/warnings

+ swearing.

+ implied past abuse.

* * *

**Security**

He's too clever, is L. Sometimes Jas thinks she never should have meddled with him in the first place.

But she needed him. Needs him. He is necessary. He's a barometer. He makes other people make important choices.

And now, Naomi Penber is important, too.

But L is the problem. He can feel her. He's gaining the ability to sense when she's controlling someone. He isn't forgetting the things he ought to forget. And now he's picking up on the memory-gaps in the people around him.

That's the problem with really clever humans. She can't weigh down their minds sufficiently. They start to see the cracks, they start to recognise the differences between what _is_ and what _ought to be_.

And L is the cleverest.

And that's rapidly becoming a really huge problem. Because L is resolved to save everyone from hell. Even when he really shouldn't.

Even when he really, _really_ shouldn't.

And she can't do anything about that, but it shouldn't matter. Pure evil cannot change. Everything will be all right, in the end.

* * *

The removing of the mask is probably meant to be an auspicious occasion – given Takada's known tendencies towards pomp and circumstance – but some combination of disappointment and recent danger seems to have sapped her strength. She tosses the mask aside as soon as they are secure, and eyes Naomi as if daring her to say something.

Naomi clasps her hands obligingly.

"I knew you'd be beautiful," she says softly, and then averts her eyes and smiles.

Takada starts, and then shakes her head.

"Bronson will show you to your room," she says gruffly. "You will be working harder, now you are here. I expect you to start attempting to access police databases as soon as possible. You'll be working with Leah, and liasing with a remote supporter named Carter. They are the best hackers we presently have access too."

_Since you killed Roper, you mean_, Naomi thinks disgustedly. Kiyomi Takada is clearly a very frightened woman, but that doesn't excuse what she did. People should not be executed like…like insects. Without a word. Without a second's hesitation.

But then, they all know that death notes turn people into monsters.

_Most_ people, anyway.

And how damaged is Kiyomi Takada? How damaged is everyone who ever loved Light? Naomi cannot even begin to imagine how his father must feel, knowing the truth. And his mother. And…he had a sister, didn't he? How do they live with themselves? How do they ever trust anyone again?

Hell, L had at best a brief, tentative, and mistrustful friendship with Light, and _he's_ been seriously damaged by the things that Light did.

In some ways, Light will never be gone. Kira will never be gone. His impact on the world is eternal, part of history, part of everything.

Naomi should have shot him when she had the chance.

She's feeling truly nauseous and weak now, her good health from this morning completely evaporated.

Sometimes, she can still hear his voice in her head, politely ordering her to kill herself.

"Of course, my Lady," she says politely. "Right away. You will know where I am if you need anything."

Moustache-whose-name-is-apparently-Bronson leads her to her quarters without another word, but she can feel Takada's eyes on the back of her head.

Shinigami eyes. Death eyes.

Is Takada just another proxy for Light?

_This illness…is it you?_

_Are you back?_

_If you are, I swear to god I'll kill you. You won't get to L. You won't get to anyone. I'll be right here when Takada unearths you, and I'll kill you._

_I swear_.

"I need nothing," Takada says coldly, from behind her. "Go."

* * *

"Everything went according to plan," Rae reports, sounding moderately cheerful for once.

"Yes," L says quietly. "So I've heard. And seen. Raye played his part perfectly, as did Naomi."

"I can't believe how well we managed to time everything," Rae continues, brightly.

Its enthusiasm reminds L of brown-eyed Rae. Of when they used to solve cases together, just the two of them.

_We were such a good team._

L doesn't say that out loud, of course.

"I cannot believe it either," L replies, sucking on the tip of his thumb. "In fact, I'm not sure I do believe it."

"Huh? You think Takada's smart enough to set a trap _this_ complex? No way."

"No, what bothers me is that Takada isn't setting any traps at all. It is as if her paranoia is lessened around Naomi."

"Well, yeah. That's what we were aiming for, right?" Rae replies dismissively. "I don't know why you're moping about it."

"Do you remember Grace, Boney?" L enquires, tilting his head to one side and regarding his Shinigami with interest.

"Of course."

"And you remember Holland?"

Rae hesitates, slowly screwing up the front part of its skull in concentration.

"I…I can remember Holland," it tells him. "But…it's weird. It's hard. I think some of my memories were damaged when I went through that bad patch."

"The brown-eyed phase?" L asks dejectedly.

"The disabled phase, yeah," Rae replies with a strange, nasty smirk. "But that won't happen again."

"No one else in the team even remembers Holland," L says softly, resting his hands on his knees. "I myself struggle to recall him. Why would that be? None of _us _have been through any psychological trauma."

"Why the hell should I know?" Rae demands. It rummages briefly through the mountain of wrappers at its feet. "I'm no expert on humans. Hey, have you got anything in here that isn't sickeningly sweet?"

"There is brake fluid under the dashboard," L replies diplomatically. "And you are very much an expert on humans. You read people very well. Better than me, in fact."

"And that's considered some sort of achievement, is it?" Rae asks, with a mocking smile. "Let's face it, L, you've been pretty consistently out of your league with recent cases. If it weren't for me, you'd have been forced into retirement a year ago."

L sucks in a breath and holds it.

"Do you still consider me to be evil?" he asks, dreading the answer.

"Yes," Rae says quickly.

"Do you still believe I will use the death note before the end?"

"Of course."

"Huh."

L digs out a package of biscotti from behind his chair and tears it open.

"I have a theory."

"Oh, are we avoiding the conversation about how you're corrupt and incompetent, again? I never would have predicted _that_."

L feels the remainder of his patience evaporate. He has no inclination to start playing accusation games with Rae. Something huge is going on, and he has no idea what to do about it.

"Would you just _listen_?" he says harshly. "I have a theory. I think the hell-god is still in possession of Kiyomi Takada. And he…_it_…is controlling what happens around her. And that includes us."

"Now you're just talking crazy," Rae snorts. "None of us are in hell. Or are you implying that the second world _is_ hell?"

"I am implying that…hell is in many places," L corrects, thinking of Rem. "I estimate that someone around Holland was in hell, too. Holland was a part of that hell. I cannot help but wonder if he ever existed at all."

"I think you've been spending too much time watching Takada," Rae argues. "_You're_ becoming paranoid."

"You have never met the hell-god," L replies. "And you have never met the queen. While they may be one and the same, that is not important right now. What matters is this. Someone is manipulating us. All of us. Right now. And they have probably done the same thing before, too."

"No, what matters is this; you're clearly not fit to be running investigations any more."

"Oh, _shut up_, will you?" L snaps, slamming the palm of his hand against the door. "Could you please contain your insipid loathing and hatefulness long enough to _listen to what I have to say_? Think about it. Think about everything. The plan to send Naomi out to rescue Takada was incredibly risky. Almost nonsensical. And yet _I agreed to it. And so did you_!"

Rae doesn't answer him for a moment. It seems to be struggling again.

"Yes," it says faintly. "Yes, all right. I…yes. It's a bit weird, maybe."

"I am worried that you are in hell, too," L continues, all his vague, half-formed thoughts tumbling out of his mouth. "Based on relative intelligence quota, you ought to be able to see things as clearly as I do. And yet you are blinded to the inconsistencies surrounding your circumstances."

"Whatever," Rae tells him. "I'm not in hell. _You_ are delusional."

L moves, lightning-fast. He grabs the Shinigami by its collarbone and presses its forehead to his own.

"_Think, _Rae!" he hisses. "If you are meant to be king, why are you not informed of the conditions of hell_? _Of the origins of your fellow Shinigami_? Why have you never met the queen?"_

It's all starting to come crashing down. L is being…interfered with. This hell-god…this _world_...Mello. He's not even sure what he's going to do. How can he defeat something he cannot see or communicate with?

He cannot. Not yet. But he is going to fight it on its own terms. His mind is his, and his alone. He will not tolerate possession. He will not forget Holland. And he will not forget any facet of this case.

And he will get Naomi safely home, and he will arrest Takada, and then he will make sure Rae is redeemed.

Somehow.

He's L. And he'll do what he can, competent or not.

Rae vanishes from under his fingers, and reappears as far away from him as possible whilst still being mostly inside the vehicle.

"You're insane," it says, accusingly. "Don't ever touch me again!"

L hangs his head.

He is all alone, in this. It's just him and the hell-god.

"I understand," he whispers.

* * *

There was a moment.

Just there, back there. When it all seemed. Seemed like.

Like all of L's blathering might be correct.

_Is…is it possible?_

_Could someone be…_

_Manipulating._

_Manipulating me._

It's hard to even think about it.

_Am I struggling against you, to even recognise you?_

No. It isn't possible.

_No one can touch me. No one would dare. No one can beat me._

Not the queen. Not some god of hell. Not fucking little Naomi Penber, and certainly not _L_.

The reason it's hard to think of is that it's impossible. Illogical.

_I am the crown prince of the Shinigami, and rightfully so. _

_Soon enough, everything will be mine._

The thing is, none of this - not even that awful debilitated brown-eyed phase – matters even slightly. Everything is falling into place. In the end, all that matters is that name. L is a monster. And he'll prove it, in the end. He'll use the note, like every other murderer. Like every other scumbag. He cna't help what he is.

_And then._

_Then I'll tell you, L._

_I have to tell you. I have to see the look on your face._

_And then, well, you'll probably beg to die._

_Because I did it._

* * *

"No!" Jas says furiously, stomping hard onto the dirt. "Not you. Don't you fucking _dare_ fight me. I'll...I'll take away your chance altogether! You deserve that much, anyway."

It only takes a moment, and she feels that mind still, and accept. Just like all the others. Jas heaves a sigh of relief. No one else is as perceptive as L. No one.

The photograph is glued to the bottom of her foot. She takes some savage pleasure in that, too.

* * *

Naomi's room here is tiny, clean, and cheap-looking. She sort of feels for Takada, being shut up in this enormous basement, terrified of leaving, terrified of everyone around her.

Her goal, of course, is to win. To defeat Takada, seize the death note, and remove any chance Light ever had of returning to the real world.

But in a different situation, a different time, a different place, Takada is the sort of broken, battered person that she'd most want to save.

That is irrelevant to the task at hand, of course. There are dozens of people being murdered every day. And Takada constantly checks the feed to Roper's house, just in case L shows up to surrender. And Naomi can never forgive her for that. She can never forgive anyone who endangers her boss and his delicate psyche.

L is a powerful motivator.

Naomi isn't sure he realises that. He certainly can't see that his gigantic psychotic skeleton-monster is trying to fight off being in love with him.

And Naomi's hardly about to point _that_ out to him.

"There are fewer cameras in this room," Rae muses, propping its elbow up on her desk. "I presume that means her trust in you is increasing."

Of course it is. And now, Naomi has to prove she's a devout fan of Kira and a smitten fan of Takada, obtain a confession, and get out of here alive.

"The guy monitoring you only checks up on you occasionally, too," the Shinigami continues. "L ought to be pleased that we've progressed this far in six days."

_But he isn't_, Naomi surmises. L won't be able to rest until all of this is over. And time is not on their side.

Sometimes, she thinks it would be better for him to have Light reappear and get it over with. Until L fights him again, he's going to live his whole life anticipating that moment.

"Speaking of which, he has further instructions for you," Rae informs her. It seems to quite enjoy their one-sided conversations, despite the fact that it openly loathes her. "Since you've already proved your value as a disciple, we have room to move. Grint Street Police Station have already replaced their usual databases with convincing fakes, so we can control the amount of classified information she can access. Be as helpful as you can, I'll let you know if you need to stall for time. Your illness will be useful for that."

Ah yes, her illness. Takada kindly supplied her with a laptop, so that she can work and contact the other disciples even while horizontal and in bed.

So thoughtful.

Today is a particularly bad day. She hasn't even attempted to eat, and it's already late in the afternoon. Lucky _her_ brain doesn't run on sugar, or she'd be completely useless.

"Scratch your nose if you understand all of that," Rae prompts. "Also, your husband says he loves you. Dunno why."

Naomi rubs at her nose and accidentally extends her middle finger in the process.

Whoops.

* * *

Naomi goes to the pharmacy for more ginger, and passes Takada and Moustache-Bronson on the way back to her room.

Takada regards her pale, clammy face with mild disgust, and does not meet her eyes.

"I can call in a doctor if you need one, Naomi Penber. We have plenty of educated people available to us," she says haughtily.

"That won't be necessary, my Lady," Naomi replies truthfully. "I don't trust other people with my body."

Takada raises an eyebrow at her.

"You've been hurt before?"

Naomi regards the floor, in lieu of a verbal response.

She's not a victim of abuse, and she hates preying on Takada's fears. But this one woman is not worth all of the people she's killing. Naomi knows where her priorities lie.

"I'm sorry for that," Takada says curtly. "You will be safe here, I assure you. Please return to your room."

"May I sit with you, my Lady?" Naomi blurts out. "That we might commune with Kira together?"

Takada starts, and then scowls at her.

"No," she says roughly. "Do as you are told!"

Naomi checks her watch. Six-fifteen. According to Rae, Takada usually writes in the death note at seven o'clock.

"I think you're getting to her," the Shinigami murmurs.

* * *

Fighting the hell-god is going to be difficult. Even more difficult than fighting Kira, because even the victims are tricky to recognise. The only thing L can do is wait for clues.

Their more immediate battle has become something of a waltz. Hacker against hacker. Kiyomi's talented supporters - Jim Carter and Leah Wintz - against the elite professionals L has hired to prevent them from accessing any real information.

Roper was the best Takada had, which means they know that Carter and Wintz are both fallible. Fallible, but not stupid. It will, of course, look bad for Naomi if the Grint Street Police Station suddenly has excellent security. The security of the fake databases must be very ordinary - for the most part - but there must be no chance of Takada's men accessing the real files underneath. Mail has assured L that such a thing is possible. He's been the point of contact for the professional hackers.

Actually, Mail has been the point of contact for most of their associates during this case. He's doing...surprisingly well for himself. When this is all over and Light is Definitely Not Coming Back, L is certain he'll feel quite proud of Mail.

As long as he doesn't work out the truth, of course.

* * *

Takada hasn't slept since the fiasco at Bradley's Bistro. The sheer disappointment weighs on her heavily. And the terror...the terror is always there. Someone knew her - and knew _Light_ - well enough to nearly capture her. That cannot be allowed to happen again.

She feels thick and disoriented from sleep-deprivation, and yet she still cannot seem to drift off for more than a few minutes. She lies curled up at the edge of her bed, one hand on the precious sheaf of paper stashed in her pillowcase. Bronson and Gree are keeping guard right outside the door. There are cameras on every point of entrance. There are cameras in places where the only way into her room is through a foot-thick wall of masonry. And still, she is afraid. Her eyes flutter closed only to immediately jerk back open, over and over again.

Kiyomi's life is filled with monsters. L, and Jason, and that blonde kid with the motorbike, and the FBI agent, and the darkness that is the sheer, oppressive absence of _Light_. Nightmares are standard fare for her. She dreams of burning, of Jason's ministrations, of Misa's ugly face. She dreams of failure, always.

And yet, this night, it is something else that repeatedly tugs her from her sleep. Innocuous words, spoken without malice or threat.

_May I sit with you, my Lady?_

_May I?_

* * *

And then the next day, she damn well asks _again_. And here Kiyomi had thought she was _smart_.

"Leah tells me you're still getting nowhere with the databases, Naomi."

"Yes, that's right," Naomi says, scrunching her face up into an expression that's either regret or nausea. "I apologise, my Lady. I am trying to remember as aptly as possible. I wish I had had the forethought to write things down when I first left the force."

"There is no place for such useless thoughts here," Takada scolds. "The past is the past. You need to find a way for us to use your skills. You don't want to be a burden to me, do you?"

"Oh _no_, my Lady," Naomi replies, looking rather satisfyingly horrified. "Never, my Lady."

"And you may call me Kimiko, here. It's an alias, obviously."

"Yes, my La...Kimiko."

Takada sighs.

"Good. Now go back to your room and find me a way into those databases."

"Yes, my...Kimiko," Naomi replies, richocheting from chagrine right back to misty subservience. "I will do my best. We all need strength in this difficult time."

And then she hesitates, twirling her dark hair around her forefinger.

"May I sit with you tonight, my Lady?"

Takada feels her face heat up, briefly, treacherously.

_Who are you?_

_Who are you, and why do I care?_

"For the second time, no!"

Naomi smiles.

"Ah. Then perhaps I should ask a third time."

Takada is struck momentarily dumb. Naomi doesn't seem to notice. She turns on her heel and totters off, without another word.

"She's cute!" Ryuk pipes up, unhelpfully.

* * *

Kiyomi holds her pen above the paper. Pal Ingrid. A convicted people-smuggler. Never served jail time due to beaurocratic errors.

That's the problem with the weak, flailing legal systems in this world. Errors. Errors and mistakes and reduced-sentences and political bargaining and filthy human weakness.

Kira doesn't make beaurocratic errors, and neither does she. Kira is absolute. Light is absolute, and she _will_ save him.

She scribbles down Pal's name, and goes back to browsing the news pages, musing on who to punish next.

_If she asks a third time, will she ask a fourth time?_

_Is she just going to go on asking?_

Kiyomi pushes a hand through her bangs, trying to drag the thoughts out of her head. This is vexing, and frustrating, and stupid.

_I'm the goddess of the new world! Why am I worrying about this? If I ordered her never to ask anything of me, she'd shut her mouth in a heartbeat and never open it again_.

_Yes, I have all the power in our relationship. I have all the power in every relationship with everyone around me. Because I have a death note. And right now...I am Kira. _

Momentarily comforted, she pens another name. Sean Mayne. Tried for rape. Vindicated, but he was probably guilty. The high courts are still dominated by men, after all.

_So..._

_Why haven't I told her to stop asking?_

_She's practically promised to do it again._

Naomi is in love with Kira, of course. They all are. But perhaps she's naive enough to have transferred that love to Takada, while she stands as Kira's representative.

Mmm, that would be nice. Someone like Naomi, competent and clever and _safe_. Devoted to her. Just until Light comes back, of course. Takada would never take a supporter away from Light.

Just for now. Takada's not gay, or anything _weird_ like that. But the love of one's god is always divine. And wanting someone to love her is not the same as wanting to love them back. Because she _doesn't. _Light is the only one for her, oh god, the pivotal point of everything. Her deity, her saviour, her _man_. He loves her and she loves him, and they'll be together, like the payoff in every romantic fairy-tale.

Because.

Because it's not like.

It's...he _had_ to kill her. She made a mistake, and left him with no other options. That kid..._Mello_...he forced Light into it. Light probably sobbed and choked and clutched at the death note while she died. He probably let himself be killed shortly afterwards, just so they could be together.

Yes, yes. There's no doubt that he loves her.

None at all.

* * *

L's plan is a complicated one. First, Naomi will manage to provide Bryce's pass-code to her colleagues, through a combination of guesswork and vague memory. Once Takada's men log in as Bryce, they will be able to access to a number of other police accounts, all with barely-average security. Correction; all but _one_ with barely average security. And one account with suspiciously, ridiculously excellent encryption. Mary Cleese. An average-skilled but high ranking police detective. Takada's hackers will find a way into all the restricted files on her account over the span of a couple of days. Mary will grant access to the entire fake police-database, but that won't be important for long. Because she will also going to grant access to L. Because she is - it will be revealed - L's daughter.

It's a good plan. Things have been paced out so that it ought to take a full eight days to make the connection to L. All Naomi has to do is play along, occasionally have moments of brilliance and intuition, and try not to laugh at the idea of L managing to procreate, or romantically attract anyone who isn't ten foot tall and made of skulls.

And do anything she has to do to get close to Takada. Anything.

It's been a good day. Naomi has only fainted once, and she even managed to keep down a piece of toast at breakfast.

And, at six fifteen, she goes and waits for Takada. After all, she's supposed to be besotted. That's the plan.

Takada passes by a moment later, and stops dead when she sees Naomi.

"I bring good news, Kimiko," Naomi says brightly. "I know Leah and Carter will report to you anyway, but I wanted to be the first. I've remembered Bryce's pass-code! When I knew him, he used to cycle through five or six different phrases. I've been trying variations on those themes, and we've finally found the right one!"

"That's...good," Takada says somberly. She seems to be having trouble speaking normally. "That is good news."

Gree is with her today. Not Bronson. Naomi is starting to learn the quirks and personalities of Takada's various cronies. Gree is long-legged and clever, obsessed with finding Kira more than she is of any notion of justice. She never wears makeup, and keeps a scarf wrapped around her head. Naomi suspects that she goes to great lengths to try and look as plain as possible.

"So what are you waiting for?" Gree asks, harshly. "Get in there and find out what we can do under his name!"

"If those are my Lady's orders," Naomi replies dutifully. "However, I would make a recommendation, if I could."

Gree steps towards her, staring down at Naomi with dislike.

"No one asked for your opinion," she snaps. "You are getting ideas above your station, Penber."

"I'm asking for her opinion now," Takada says softly. "Gree, I will remind you that the people who are privy to my face have passed all assessments."

"Yes, Kimiko," Gree says, with obvious frustration.

_You're going to be a problem_, Naomi thinks, eyeing up the other woman. _What do you want, Gree? Are you in love with Light Yagami too?_

_He had quite a harem, obviously._

_I suppose it's true, then, that lots of women fall for assholes. And losers._

"Thank you," Naomi gushes, throwing in a little bow for good measure. "I just wanted to point out that it's the after-hours shift at the police station right now, and as far as I know Bryce hasn't worked nights in a couple of years. Logging in as Bryce tonight - or any night - would almost certainly trigger an investigation by morning."

Takada touches her chin.

"I see," she says, without emotion. "What do you recommend?"

"We wait until tomorrow, after nine am, when he's likely to be on duty," Naomi tells her. "It's safer that way."

"I understand," Takada murmurs. "Yes. We'll do that. Very good. Naomi, Gree, you are both dismissed. I have things to do."

_People to kill_, Naomi thinks.

"Yes, Kimiko," Gree says firmly, and heads for the door. Then she notices that Naomi is not leaving, and pauses mid-stride.

Naomi ignores her. She sweeps the hair out of her face with two fingers, and smiles nervously.

"May I sit with you tonight, my Lady?" she asks. "Dare I wonder whether I am worthy of praying with you?"

"Kira isn't all about prayer, you know."

"That's a point for us," Rae crows, from somewhere over her head. "If she were going to reject you, she would have done it straight away."

_Oh yes, you believe you can read people so well, don't you?_ Naomi thinks, but she's pleased with her progress, as well.

"Do you want me to start keeping score?" Rae asks, with a cheery little laugh that inexplicably bothers her.

She _hates_ people who lie, and she hates people who are disingenuous. And she hates Rae.

"I understand that, of course," she replies gently. "But Kira is my morality. Thinking of him, talking to him, that is how I remind myself of what is right. And of who I am."

"Fifteen minutes," Takada replies, her tone suddenly cold and dismissive.

"Will I come too, Kimiko?" Gree demands.

"No," Takada tells her. "You may go."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ aiming for a chapter every ten days. oh god I suck at this game.

+ thank you so much, guys.


	37. Change

notes/warnings

+ swearing.

+ implied past abuse.

+ may contain tea and giant skeletons. but not necessarily in the same mouthful.

* * *

**Change**

As soon as they get back to the office, Takada makes tea. She seems to want to keep busy. Naomi sits on a chair as instructed, folds her arms, and waits.

Tea is a complicated sort of beverage. From beginning to end, it involves growing plants, picking leaves, drying leaves, crushing dried leaves, boiling water, steeping tea, pouring tea, and possibly adding milk and sugar.

It seems like a ridiculous amount of effort to put into something that doesn't even taste of apples.

Naomi pretends to pray under her breath. She's a damn good little actor, and Ryuk is thoroughly impressed. He wonders whether she'll win out over Takada in the end.

Of course, that's the ultimate question, isn't it? The decisive factor in Takada's fate. To get out of hell, some people have to win. Others have to accept defeat. Or save a life. Or realise the error of their ways. Or renounce evil, whatever the hell _that's_ supposed to be. Or come to terms with their own insecurities. Or fall in love. Or fall out of love.

Honestly, he doesn't know how the queen keeps track of all of them. They're just like ants, really. Teeny, tiny, ants. Occasionally-adorable, occasionally-fascinating, apple-producing, human-shaped ants. With valuable life spans and the ability to really screw up their own lives, and intelligence, and...

Okay, maybe they're not really like ants.

Takada comes back with two mugs, and Naomi accepts hers and drinks from it without hesitation. She can't display any sort of caution, of course. Mistrusting Takada will only make her suspicious.

Rae hasn't come with Naomi. It's almost as if Rae is avoiding him.

Nah, couldn't be. Ryuk is a fun guy to be around. Rae must be busy elsewhere, that's all.

"Thank you, my...Kimiko."

"Think about what you just said, and then don't say it again," Takada warns. She's on edge. She must like Naomi, at least a little bit. Or maybe she's just planning on killing her. Or maybe she's having a bad...nose day? Hair day?

Ryuk is no expert on humans. Can't predict 'em to save his life. He learned that much while he was with Light.

"Oh," Naomi gasps, and presses a hand over her mouth. "I'm...I'm so sorry. How rude, to imply ownership of...oh, forgive me."

She hangs her head miserably.

"Drink your tea," Takada tells her, rolling her eyes. "And stop being so dramatic. Did you not come here to pray?"

"Yes," Naomi replies meekly, peering up through her fringe. "I was going to pray for myself, that I might be healthy once more. But I think I've changed my mind. Tonight, I want to pray for you."

Takada looks distinctly uncomfortable.

"Do you honestly think I need your prayers?" she asks sternly.

"I think we all need Kira's help," Naomi replies earnestly. "And...well, I wish you could be happy. What you are doing right now is important and amazing, but you look so sad. I want to do what I can to make sure things get better for you."

"Things will be better when Kira returns."

"Then it's the perfect thing to pray about," Naomi says decisively. "You."

"Do what you want," Takada chokes, tipping her head forward to hide her face. "You have ten minutes left here. I have...other engagements tonight."

"Of course," Naomi replies warmly, pretending not to notice.

_You're good_, Ryuk thinks. _Light's lucky he killed you straight away, or you would have been a serious rival. Maybe even more serious than L himself._

And then, fondly, he wonders what Emma would think of her.

* * *

Nothing happens.

Naomi prays and smiles and drinks her tea, and leaves. And nothing happens. She doesn't try anything. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't _do_ anything.

Takada can't explain why that bothers her, but it does.

* * *

L aches from sitting in the same position for days on end. His head throbs from lack of sleep.

He can't sleep. If he sleeps, Light might come back.

He knows he is irrational about Light, but then, Light was _always_ irrational. Implausible. Impossible powers, impossible timing, impossible luck. If he breaks out of hell, it will be at the most beneficial moment possible.

Of course, L is already in a weakened state just from the extended surveillance. If he were Light, he'd choose now. Right now. While L is struggling to concentrate, and baffled by the hell god, and frightened and mostly unarmed.

So how should he do it?

It would be best to disguise himself as a police officer supporting the case. No! Light will believe that L will be suspicious of all police officers and their offspring.

Or will he know L's not that easily damaged?

No, it would have to be a police officer. He'll track L using L's own contacts. Hell, maybe he'll pose as a detective and get in touch with Buzz, and they can...

Maybe he _is_ Buzz.

Dear god. That...that would make sense. Buzz knew about the Kira case. Buzz knew about Light.

So, Light will pose as a detective, and track down L. One day soon, L is going to look out the window and see that horrible, expressionless, schoolboy-ish face staring back at him. And laughing.

And then...then Light will kill him.

No.

Then Light will come up against a ten-foot wall of skulls that has a vested interest in L staying alive.

L allows himself a tiny smile. Rae is kind of his hero, in a way. The Shinigami would deeply resent that thought, but it's true. Someone saving his life because it benefits them is still someone saving his life, as far as he's concerned.

But.

If everything that is happening now truly _is_ controlled by the hell-god, then what? Is it the hell-god's will that Light return? That Light kill him, stop his heart, drop him out of his chair again and _laugh_?

Rae isn't stronger than the hell-god. No, the hell-god is obviously capable of controlling anyone he chooses. If Light finds him while Rae is with Naomi, L will have no way of contacting his Shinigami. No way of asking for help.

Is he going to die, all alone, bent double in this tiny van?

"I give it four days," Rae announces, arrogantly flopping onto the seat beside him. "Naomi is an excellent actress. With her charm and my brains, we should have Takada trusting her absolutely within four days."

"That is excellent news," L replies, pushing his fears aside. "Please tell Naomi that I am very pleased with her progress."

"Will do," Rae agrees, and then side-eyes him carefully. "You're still going through your paranoid phase, huh?"

"What?"

"Your face is slightly paler than normal," Rae explains. "And you aren't eating anything. That means you're having a hard time. Still panicking about the god of hell?"

"What will I do if Light comes back and you aren't here to stop him killing me?" L asks quietly.

"That won't happen," Rae snorts, and then reconsiders. "I'm sure that won't happen. Why should that happen?"

"I mean, I'll die, of course. Again. I just don't want it to be in front of him. Or because of him. I don't want him to have that again."

"You're babbling," Rae says coldly.

"And...and what will _you_ do? The challenge will be passed on to someone else. You won't even miss me," L finishes, glumly.

Silence reigns in the car for a few seconds.

"Shut _up_," Rae snarls. "Why would you even say that? Why should I miss you? Why would you expect that of me? I'm a Shinigami. And I _hate_ you."

"I know," L replies. "But I don't hate you. And...and I am tired."

He can say anything he wants, to Rae. It hates him anway, it's going to leave him soon regardless, and the others won't believe anything it says about him. He might as well complain. He's _never_ allowed to complain.

"You could try sitting like a normal human being," Rae says, a strange, soft fury in its voice.

"And make myself even more vulnerable?"

"_You're_ not the one in danger."

"I will be when he comes back."

"Oh, for god's sake," Rae says darkly. "He's _not coming back_."

"You know nothing of hell," L reminds it. "Why should you claim to know that?"

He studies the Shinigami intently for a moment. It seems strangely uncomfortable.

"What? Because it's...it's common knowledge, that's why. Because-"

"Could it be that you're trying to make me feel better?" L wonders, shoving his thumb into his mouth.

"You know, I don't even know why I talk to you any more," Rae tells him angrily. "From now on, I'm going to ignore everything you say that isn't directly related to this case."

It disappears in a flurry of movement. The car is suddenly a very quiet place. The air seems too heavy. With anticipation, maybe.

L feels inexplicably lonely.

"Yes," he whispers, to no one in particular. "You do that, my friend."

* * *

"There is no ring on your finger," Takada comments, trying to sound as disinterested as possible. "I take it there is no Mr Penber?"

Not that she will know if Naomi is lying. There is no way to know whether the name over someone's head is married or maiden.

But still. Naomi would never _dare_ lie to her.

"No, my lady," Naomi replies softly. "I have never felt the desire to make such a commitment to a mere mortal. My only vows are for my religion."

"Kira," Takada translates. "Yes, that is...that is right."

Naomi gives her an uncertain little smile, and goes back to resting her head against the table. She seems to be quite ill today.

The death note does not make one omniscient. Takada cannot cure the diseased, or save the dying, or bring peace to the suffering.

Still, that won't matter. The death note is power. Power enough to become a god. Or a goddess. Who could ask for more?

Kira isn't the benevolent sort of deity that Naomi prays to. In a way, Takada almost pities her. She's so confused. And earnest. And weak.

"And you, my lady?" Naomi ventures. "No Mr...er, Kimiko?"

Takada lets herself laugh out loud at that comment.

_You really do know nothing. Perhaps I was a fool to ever suspect you_.

"In the first world, Kira and I were partners," she says simply, and smirks.

_Yes, that's right. Poor, sad, washed-out little Misa, who thought she was engaged to Light. Poor, silly, stupid little girl. Only I was intelligent enough to be his partner. _

_But in all those years, little Misa, you never noticed how much he despised you._

_You deserved everything you got._

She and Light had conversed long into the night, every night, for so many weeks. That hotel room will always be amongst her fondest memories.

He held such derision for Misa. For so many people. The evil, the stupid, and the ordinary. Of all the people in the world, Light had only ever spoken of Takada as his intellectual equal. The rest of the population were just...sheep.

Oh, well, he spoke of L's intelligence, too. But L was the enemy. Is the enemy again. Light will be _thrilled_ to find that Takada has taken care of him.

"Oh!" Naomi exclaims, her eyes widening. "Oh. Of course. I should have guessed that."

Takada stops smiling to herself and regards Naomi intensely.

_Why should you have guessed? What do you know about me?_

_Is it possible that you might work for L and still have been willing to give your life to protect me?_

"Why do you say that?" she asks, coldly.

Naomi looks away quickly.

"Well, he's Kira, isn't he?" she says, matter-of-factly. "He can have his choice of anyone he wants. Why wouldn't he choose the most beautiful woman in the world?"

* * *

"Are you all right, toots?" Ryuk asks gleefully. "You haven't stopped pacing since Naomi left. And by 'left', I mean, 'you sent her away really suddenly and while sounding sort of mad'. I'm starting to think-"

"Shut up, Shinigami!" Takada snaps. "Why does she say these things? What does she _want_?"

"How would I know? I'm a god of death. I don't understand _people. _Why don't you just ask her what she wants?"

"Because I don't know what I want her to say, that's why!" Takada replies sharply. "Oh, god, she's taking advantage of me. Joining my disciples now, when Light isn't here. When I'm alone. She saved my life. She made me safe. Why is she _doing_ this?"

"Look, if you're sick of her, you still have a death note," Ryuk points out, prising open the fridge. "Just saying."

"I can't _kill_ her," Takada tells him. "God, she's already ill. What if she dies? What will I do then?"

"You're attached to her," Ryuk decides. "Hey, golden delicious! I didn't even think they were in season at this time of year."

"It's not wrong, to want to have someone for yourself, is it?" she asks. "I'm just using her. Light used Misa. It should be okay."

"Well, that'ff true. Iff you don' get Ligh' back, then whatff the poin' in doing what heef wantf, righ'?"

"You are disgusting," Takada says primly. "And you are dribbling apple juice all over the floor. But you do have a point. I ought to put myself first. I'm not choosing her over Light. I'd just be choosing her over...over this. Over loneliness. If she is so obliged to protect me, she'll be useful to my goal."

"Righf!"

Takada turns away from her munching Shinigami, and regards her reflection in the elaborate mirror hanging above her sink.

_Am I really that beautiful?_

_How can you say that, when you know nothing of me. Nothing of what I want, or how I feel or what I remember._

_Or what I've been through._

_Oh god, what I've been through._

_But you. You're so noble. So noble, and so desperate to look after me. _

For the first time since she the death note came to her, Kiyomi Takada wants to tell someone about her recent past. She wants Naomi to know about Big Jason, and what he does to people.

She wants Naomi to hate him. She wants Naomi to defend her.

She wants.

* * *

"You know, I'm no expert on humans, but Kiyomi was doing some serious repressing and rationalising back there."

"Tell me about it," Rae replies, with dignity. "It's almost _pathetic_."

Ryuk tries not to snicker out loud.

He doesn't want to get punched again, after all.

* * *

Leah waves both of her arms around in the air, in a bizarre-but-enthusiastic expression of victory.

"Look at all this information! Naomi, you are a godsend. There must be thousands of police files here!"

Naomi smiles indulgently.

"Just remember to be careful. And to log out before six o'clock this evening."

"Got it," Leah replies, and flashes a thumbs-up at her. "Kimiko will be pleased with us."

They've been poking through Bryce's files for the past day and a half, and Leah seems to get excited every time they uncover a new folder. It's almost endearing. Naomi doesn't mind working with Leah. She's an interesting woman, actually. She's honest and loud, and seemingly kind. Naomi wonders whether she even knows the truth about Takada's goals. She doesn't seem the type to worship Kira. She seems the type to just want to enjoy her life.

Then again, who knows what lies Takada has told? Or what lies Light might have told, when he was still alive in the first world. Kira apparently gained thousands and thousands of followers in the time between L's death and his own. It's not surprising that ordinary, unjaded people have been drawn to him as much as the bigots, the sociopaths, and the anger-riddled.

"What are we even supposed to be looking for?" Naomi asks curiously. "I mean, back in my day, the senior officers made it clear that they hated everything to do with Kira, so I can understand that they might oppose us. But I was under the impression that no-one had really noticed the movements of our Lady."

She tips her head to one side, mimicking L's thinking position.

"Although that FBI agent knew who she was, didn't he?" she muses. "I suppose _someone _must be after her. It makes me sick just thinking about it."

"You're sick all the time, honey," Leah points out brightly.

"I know. But she and Kira are trying so hard to protect innocent people, and make a good world, and then these...these..._people_ are trying to _stop_ them."

"Humans, as a species, kind of suck," Leah says sagely. "But that's okay. Things are supposed to be better in the second world. Justice will prevail."

_Maybe you really do believe in Kira,_ Naomi thinks, suddenly achingly sad for this woman. Light is no god. Light is an evil megalomaniac. He killed the good alongside the bad without a second thought. And in the end, all he wanted was to be great.

Not justice.

Not peace.

Just power.

_Look at what you've done, you stupid little boy. Look at what you've done to everybody_.

"You're right, of course," Naomi replies. "I wish I knew what our Lady's plans were. I feel like I'm fumbling in the dark, trying to help but not really knowing what I ought to do. I'm glad I managed to assist you in breaking into the police database."

"You fret too much," Leah replies with a grin. "Trust in Kimiko. She'll bring Kira back. She's an amazing woman."

"Yes," Naomi says emphatically. Takada might be listening, after all. It wouldn't do to miss a chance to make her pulse race.

Because according to Rae, she's definitely starting to fall.

And Rae ought to know.

And Naomi wishes she didn't feel so much like Light, tricking innocent people into loving him, breaking hearts and minds and bodies all over the place. But Naomi's doing this to _stop_ Light, and that makes it okay.

L makes people fall for him without malice or intent, without even noticing at all. She wishes she were more like him.

"So, do you think that Kira can really kill people just by thinking about it?" Leah asks conspirationally. "Or do you think he can just move too fast to be seen? I always fancied the idea of him zooming around through the air, carrying a giant scythe."

"I'm sure we mere mortals could guess for a million years, and still not be able to comprehend the powers of a god," Naomi replies.

"Oh yeah," Leah mutters. "Of course."

* * *

"Did you get the picture I sent?" L asks softly, his phone dangling from his forefinger and thumb.

"Yes, L," Watari replies courteously. "The quality is below average, as you know, but the software matched the face with ninety-five percent confidence."

There is something comforting about computer programs that calculate probabilities. L almost feels as if he can relate to them.

"And the match?" he asks, politely. He always saves his best manners for Watari. No one else has served him so faithfully. No one else tolerates his moods and whims without complaint.

No one else died with him, that day.

_No, wait._

She did. Rem did.

Bizarrely, L wishes Watari could have met her.

"She is Jacinta Wedgewood."

"The supermodel," L muses. "I thought I recognised her. What on earth is she doing working for Takada? Surely she has plenty of money and power in her own right."

"Perhaps she has faith?" Watari suggests.

"Yes, perhaps."

"Jacinta is a stage name, of course. Grianna Jones must be her real name, if it is the one that Rae sees."

"Yes, but it doesn't make sense," L tells him, wearily.

"Are you all right, L?" Watari asks gently. "Do you need anything?"

"Not unless you can find me the god of hell," L says tersely. "I think he may be trying to control me."

"Then," Watari says, and L can _hear_ him smile, "he is in for one hell of a fight."

* * *

Hells set in the real world are always a little tricky. Hells set around L are rapidly becoming dangerous. She will have to stop using him, soon. He is becoming too strong, even under Jas' considerable influence.

And...she is upsetting him.

Kiyomi Takada, on the other hand, is easy. She's practically falling for Naomi Penber of her own accord. All Jas needs to do is accelerate things, make it all fit, make sure everyone arrives in the right place at the right time, and...

And then Takada must make her choice.

Jas is an impartial being. She doesn't care who falls and who is saved.

Well, mostly she doesn't care. She cares about Mello, maybe, a little, but who _wouldn't_? He's like a living doll, so bright, so perfect. Who wouldn't want him for their very own? Who wouldn't want him to be happy?

Jas cannot have both of those things, of course. That is the curse of being the hell-god.

She should never have developed feelings for a human.

And even here, even in Takada's hell, the path is not completely clear. Jas used to be better. She used to be able to arrange real-world hells so that no humans died except when they were supposed to.

Now, there is a chance that a lifespan might be cut short. And yet there is no way around that.

Besides, it doesn't matter how incompetent she becomes. She is the only queen there is, and she must rule hell forever. If she falls, if she changes, well.

The world will just have to change, too.

* * *

The next evening, two of their five servers shut down, and Takada has to spend a good few hours glaring at various people before they are properly fixed.

Seven o'clock comes and goes. She doesn't kill any criminals, and she doesn't get to sit with Naomi.

They cannot afford any mistakes. Leah believes that one of the accounts linked to Bryce's is heavily guarded. Takada needs to find out what is inside.

Naomi Penber is an incredibly useful woman. With her connections, and Leah's talents, and the sheer manpower of Kira's supporters, they _will_ find L.

And destroy him.

It's been a busy day. Takada drinks a low-sugar, organic smoothie, pulls a robe over her shoulders, writes down the names of a few randomly-selected criminals, pointedly ignores Ryuk, and goes to bed.

Three minutes later, the phone rings.

Fear ricochets through Takada's veins. She sits bolt upright, regarding her phone with open terror.

"Him again, huh?" Ryuk asks. "Damn. He needs a hobby."

She has to answer. If she doesn't answer, Big Jason might come to deliver his message in person. She takes the phone and opens it.

"What do you want?" she asks, as calmly as possible, her palms drenched with cold sweat.

"Good evening," Jason replies, smarmily. "Just wanted to let you know that this Light's family have made some stupid mistakes, and doubled their debt. I've been forced to tighten some of the slack in our arrangement."

Takada's heart thuds in her chest.

"Light's family were good people," she says softly.

"Good people make mistakes," Jason says brightly. "Debt is a tricky thing, little lady."

"Don't call me pet names," she snaps, disgusted. "Light's contract is with me now."

"But Light came to my possession because of his relatives. Unfortunately, you're going to have to work faster. As compensation, I want L dead within a week."

"A _week_?" she gasps. "That's not...that isn't possible!"

"I know, I know," Jason replies. "That's why I called to offer you one last chance to pull out of this deal without consequence. Leave Yagami with me, and live your own life."

"Fuck you," Takada hisses.

"Take it or leave it, babe."

Light is her world. She cannot 'leave it'. She loves him. And he loves her. Even when he let her burn, when he killed her, when he took her hand and lit that gasoline and lay her down in the burning, scalding hot...

He loves her...

He must.

There's no way, is there? There's no possible way. No, there isn't. She has to believe he loves her. Otherwise, what is the point of her life? Of anything?

So, she must do this for him. She must play right into Jason's hands, one more time.

"You know what will happen if you fail, right?" Jason continues. "I'll want payment for your wasting my time."

"I can imagine," she chokes. "I hate you for all of this. I _hate_ you. One week. L dead in one week."

"Thatta girl," Jason croons. "Our deal is still on, then?"

"Of course it is, you monster."

* * *

Naomi wakes to Rae calling her name, and hovering over her crossly.

"Takada's on her way," it informs her coolly. "She's just been on the phone to that Big Jason character. She'll be here in a minute."

_How do you know she's coming to my room_? Naomi wonders. She knows little about Jason, but he seems to be a motivating factor in Takada's life. She's scared of him, for some reason. And he doesn't seem to have anything to do with Light, which is strange.

Of course, Takada hasn't _told_ her any of this. It's only through Rae's spying that they've found out about Jason at all. Obviously Naomi hasn't reached that level of trust. Yet.

She and Takada didn't have any one-on-one time today. Another missed opportunity. Naomi will have to work extra hard tomorrow.

She wonders what L thinks. She wonders if L is proud of her. She'd like that. Some tiny, childish part of her still wants nothing more than to please her boss.

And Rae won't tell her, of course. Because Rae is a bastard, and also possibly jealous of L talking about anyone else. She doesn't really hate the Shinigami any more. It's hard to hate something that is so small-minded and struggling _so_ hard. And still failing.

There's a knock on the door. Naomi struggles into a vaguely upright position, one hand on the nightstand, the other supporting her throbbing head. She can't just stay in bed. Takada expects her to be vigilant, after all. She's supposed to be the perfect bodyguard.

"Come in," she calls, once she's arranged herself into a suitably defensive pose.

Kiyomi Takada strides into the room, her face pale, her hair tumbling from the clip at the back of her neck.

She's not wearing that much, either, but Naomi suspects that is more by error than design. Takada is clearly terrified.

Naomi allows herself to relax, and sinks back down onto the bed. She needs stability. The world is spinning around her.

"My Lady," she says, steadying her voice. "Kimiko. What is it? What's happened?"

Rae would have warned her if there was a break-in, or a raid, or something equally serious. This must be about Big Jason's phone call.

Maybe she'll learn something.

Takada locks the door from the inside, something that Naomi has never been permitted to do, and then walks over to stand in front of Naomi. She is silent for a few moments, presumably while she decides on what she wants to say.

It's interesting, seeing Takada lose her composure. In a way, Naomi can draw a lot of comparisons between Takada and Rae.

"What's wrong?" she asks again, a little more loudly.

She's just a distressed, over-protective little Kira-worshipper, after all. Completely harmless, and a safe confidante.

"I have new instructions for you," Takada says, finally. "A few days ago, you indicated that you would risk your life to save mine."

"Of course," Naomi replies. "You shouldn't even need to ask!"

Takada tugs a phone from the pocket of her robe, flips it open, and presses a few buttons. Then she passes it to Naomi.

"That is the man known as Big Jason," Takada tells her softly. "He is one of my enemies."

Naomi stares at the photograph on the screen. It's a blurry, amateur-looking shot, obviously candid, and poorly lit. But she can make out a pointy-faced man with short blonde hair and a sparse beard, His eyes are hidden by shadows, and he looks sinister and unpleasant.

Then again, _L_ looks sinister and unpleasant, too. An enemy of Takada's might well be a friend of hers.

"What did he do to you?" Naomi asks.

Takada shudders visibly, and pulls her robe tight around her chest. Naomi's eyes widen.

_Oh god. He was That Guy? He was the one who made you so afraid of men?_

_Maybe he really is my enemy, then._

"Details aren't important," Takada tells her tremulously. "He is...well, technically he's a loan shark. He owns people. He lends money, and he collects in a big way. I was used to pay off a family member's debt not long after I arrived in the second world."

"He hurt you, didn't he?"

Takada takes the phone from Naomi and lets it tumble to the bed.

"Yes," she says, simply.

"I'll kill him," Naomi replies, immediately, and she's only half-acting. "I swear, I'll kill him. Dear god, people like him shouldn't even be _allowed_ to-"

"You do not have permission to seek him out," Takada replies coldly. "I did not come here for your sympathy. I can take care of myself. The problem is that now, this man is in possession of our Lord."

"No!" Naomi says, shaking her head violently. "No! That can't be!"

Her head is racing. This is important information. They can use this. If they know where Light is likely to be, then maybe L and the others can get to the place first and ensure that he is never freed.

"That was my reaction, too," Takada tells her, perhaps a little indulgently.

"Well, all is not lost," Naomi says firmly. "If we can reach this Jason character, that means we can reach Kira!"

"If that were possible, don't you think I'd be heading there right now?" Takada asks irritably.

Naomi stares at her.

"For all I know, you could be, my Lady," she replies seriously. "I do not presume that you tell me everything."

"That is as it should be. The truth is it would be suicide to attack Jason openly. I have a deal with him. I must provide him with something in a trade for our Lord."

_And, of course, you're not going to tell me your end of this 'trade', are you?_

_What does he want? A certain number of criminals dead? The note? Power? Revenge?_

_Good god, is this Big Jason someone we've tackled before? _

_Could it be that this is why you want L dead so badly, Takada?_

It's just a theory at the moment, and one she can't communicate with the others. She'll have to rely on the taps, and Rae's liaising, and L's magnificent brain. She'll have to hope her boss deduces the same set of possibilities. Because Takada wanting L dead out of revenge is one thing, but if murdering L is the _only_ way for Takada to get Light back, then.

Then L had better be really fucking careful, that's what. She's not losing him. She's not losing someone she loves again. She won't stand for being left behind.

"Shit," Rae breathes. "This could be a problem."

"Can I help you make this trade?" Naomi ventures, smiling at Takada.

"You already are. That's what we're all working towards, even as we speak. But I have another task for you, Naomi. As of today, you know things that no other employee knows. Jason doesn't always play fair. It is possible that if I seem to be succeeding in making the trade, he'll try to stop me. I want you to promise me that if he comes here, you will protect me from him. Will you do that, Naomi Penber?"

Takada stares at Naomi as if her answer might be the most important answer ever given. Her hands are knotted together in her lap. She still looks frightened.

_Of course, if you really are only going after L in order to save Light, then Jason is our number one enemy, too. Without Jason, you cannot make the trade._

_And I have no sympathy for people who terrorise others the way he's obviously terrorised you._

"Of course," Naomi says, letting herself sound slightly indignant. "You only needed to ask. I'll protect you. Of course I will."

Takada exhales, slowly. She seems to crumple in on herself, and Naomi wonders why she's so relieved. Surely she had plenty of other people here to protect her before Naomi came along.

But then, she doesn't trust them, does she? She trusts only Naomi.

And Naomi...Naomi does want to save her. Naomi wants to save everybody, all the time. It's just...not always possible. She can save Takada from Jason, but she cannot save Takada from Light.

Can she?

Takada flops down onto the bed, her head coming to rest on Naomi's shoulder.

"Good," she says quietly. "So you should."

They stay like that for a long time.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ oh my god only a week late yay go me!

+ thank you. I think this fic has gleaned a few new readers over the past week, and I just want to say that I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to read this far. thank you. you are all lovely.


	38. Connection

notes/warnings

+ swearing

+ people being manipulative

+ mentions of sex, sort of.

* * *

**Connection**

"So you think that my death is part of the trade between Kiyomi Takada and this Big Jason," L monotones, tipping his head back against his chair. "I had considered the possibility myself."

"I'm pretty sure Naomi thought of it, too," Rae replies. "She seemed fairly aggravated after Takada mentioned it."

"She seemed calm, according to the camera feed," L points out. "And Takada all but fell asleep on her. We have three days left. We are progressing unexpectedly well."

_Is that because of you, hell-god_? _Because I've noticed. I notice everything_.

"I really don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Rae tells him sternly. "As far as Takada is concerned, _you_ are the thing that is standing between her and Light."

"What if Jason really does have Light?" L asks softly. "What then, Shinigami?"

"That's all the more reason for us to set up some sort of manhunt and try and _find_ this guy," Rae informs him.

"So, are you now admitting that Light _might_ be in the real world?"

"_No_, moron, I'm just exhausted of arguing with you," Rae snarls. "The point is this; Jason is the reason Takada wants you dead."

"That is only a possibility," L replies, regarding the filthy ceiling. "Forty-one percent chance that the trade involves my death. There's still a good chance that Jason has asked for something else entirely."

"Oh, how I didn't miss you phrasing everything in percentages," Rae says nastily. "Forty-one is high enough that you need to be _careful_."

Rae needs him alive. For purely business-related reasons. There is no affection in Rae's desire to protect him.

Part of him just wants to give up. If Light is going to kill him again, then maybe L cannot stop that. Maybe he shouldn't even try. Maybe that is his destiny; to die by Light's hands, over and over. An eternity of _losing_.

Maybe. But even if that is true, he still wants to know. If Light is back, he wants to _know_.

"Can I ask you something, Rae?"

"Can I stop you?"

"Do you know of anyone else whose name is in the Tracking Library who has also appeared in the second world? Other than Kiyomi Takada, of course."

Rae pauses. L imagines that the Shinigami is trying to decide which lie it wants to tell him.

Or perhaps he got through to it in some small way, and it's trying to fight off the influence of the hell-god. That would be nice.

"You realise I don't know what's in the Tracking Library, right? As a god of death, I can't enter that particular building."

"Of course. Forgive me, I had forgotten that."

"Don't you start apologising over nothing!" Rae says harshly. "Now is _not_ the time!"

L stares at it, bemused.

_What?_

_What are you…_

_You read me very well_.

"All right," he offers.

"Anyway, I was going to say that certain events – events that are unrelated to this case, mind you - have convinced me that some of the names in the Tracking Library are…possibly incorrect."

L raises his eyebrow.

"Which events?"

"I said 'unrelated', didn't I?"

"Yes, but they _aren't_ actually unrelated, because you've just admitted that you _don't_ know for sure that Light is in hell, even if you've been told that he is. You've just been lying to me to stop me from panicking. Or, alternatively, the hell god has such a hold over you that you _think_ you're sure of these things but when forced to apply logic, you realise that you aren't."

"Wait, so you think _I'm_ in hell now?" Rae groans. "Do I look tormented to you? I'm going to be the damn Shinigami king!"

"If you were, I don't think you'd know," L informs it. "Therefore, I cannot rule that out."

_Am I your hell, Shinigami?_

Everyone he cares about ends up damaged or dead. He's bad luck.

Or maybe Rae's right, and he's just a terrible person. Destroying people through his own incompetence and refusal to retire.

"Did you ever have a different name, Rae?" he murmurs, closing his eye for just a moment. "Did people ever call you anything else?"

* * *

"Did people ever call you anything else?"

_Yes. Yes they did. _

_And wouldn't you like to know?_

The questions L asks are always unnerving. He doesn't know much about anything, but he's trying. He's always trying. Grappling in the dark, so confused by the hell-god and the queen and the lies about hell and his precious Mello and his darling Rem and his useless employees and his mother and his nightmares that he cannot see what is right in front of him.

_Look at you. Down one eye, and completely blind._

And that's good. That's really good. If he's spun deeply enough into a web of lies, then he might never be able to see the truth. He'll chase after criminals and fight small evils and eat cake and be satisfied with his life and never be able to see the bigger picture.

He'll become simple, like Matsuda was, like some sort of cute little dog.

Wait, what?

Not cute. Never cute. Disgusting and morally bankrupt and ugly and alone and really fucking fucking fucking manipulative.

_As soon as you write in that notebook, you are dead, Lawliet._

_Dead._

_Dead!_

* * *

"Remember the bit where I promised to ignore everything you said that wasn't directly related to the case?" Rae asks with exaggerated cheer.

"Yes," L says soberly. "I remember."

_Unfortunately, you seem to have remembered as well._

"Good," Rae replies. "If you die before you write in that note, I will make _sure_ you wind up in hell, just like you deserve. I suggest you take that into account in calculating your next course of action against Takada."

With that, it vanishes.

L tucks one knee under his chin and sighs.

* * *

The good thing about being on shift with an ordinary person who isn't L is that they occasionally need to sleep.

And that is a damned good thing, because Raye does nothing but mutter and swear and grumble and complain at every fucking thing they hear through the auditory feed. It's almost as if he doesn't _want_ his wife to succeed.

Which is ridiculous, because if she fails, she'll be dead.

Raye Penber is in love with a woman who loves him back. He's a fucking idiot for being jealous of her doing what she's been _instructed_ to do in order to defeat a _serial killer_.

Mail toys with the idea of explaining that to him. Preferably via a punch to the face.

But now isn't the time, anyway. Raye is dead to the world, slumped over in his seat, his breath fogging up the bottom of the windscreen. It's late. Judging by the sounds coming over the computer, Naomi is getting ready for bed.

Alone, tonight, apparently.

Mail is absolutely shithouse at reading people, and he has some fascination for those who can do it well. L is no Mello - of _course_ he's no Mello - but he and his Shinigami make a formidable team. They seem to have predicted this faux-Kira down to a fine art. She sounds like she's actually falling for Naomi.

She also speaks of herself as the goddess to Kira's god. Kira's _partner_.

Didn't Kiyomi Takada used to say the same sort of things?

Then again, so did Misa Amane. Who knows how many women Kira fooled, all over the world? Men, too, maybe. It doesn't sound like he was the type to discriminate. He probably used and abused everyone who was even slightly sympathetic to his cause.

And even now, even when he's completely incarcerated and locked up in hell, he's still screwing up people's lives.

Mail stares down at his arms. His wrists are thin and brittle-looking, but the leather coat shields the rest from sight. He's wearing an ordinary shirt underneath, not the quilted midriff top, because he's not _good_ at being Mello, and nor should he be.

He's nothing but a piss-poor tribute to the most amazing person the world has ever seen. And will never see again.

Raye mutters something in his sleep, and swats at the ceiling.

"I hope she doesn't fuckin' die," Mail tells him quietly. "For your sake."

* * *

The file is expertly encrypted, with security exponentially greater than any of the other files on Bryce's account. Takada calls a brief meeting of all the disciples possessing better-than-rudimentary computer skills.

She _needs_ to know what they're hiding. Secrecy always occurs for a reason, after all.

"I want all of you working on this task every day until we have access," she orders.

She's wearing a mask. Not all of the people here have been trusted with her face. She's also standing behind a sheet of bulletproof glass. Just in case.

She wonders if she's overestimated L. He hasn't done a thing since she threatened him. Maybe he's already decided to surrender, and is living out his final days.

Maybe. But she cannot be complacent. She needs information.

"All other previously-assigned duties are to be discarded, unless specifically instructed. This is our absolute priority right now. Leah will co-ordinate you as she sees fit. You are all to complete designated tasks on time, no matter what. And under no circumstances is anyone to log into this account outside of the agreed hours. Do I make myself absolutely clear?"

This is _so_ important. Police information will ultimately lead her to their leader. Their leader is L. L's death will give her Light.

She cannot fail. This must not fail.

She has exactly six days.

Twenty-eight disciples chorus their profuse agreement. Every single one of them might be vital to the success of this undertaking.

But in the sea of faces, she finds herself seeking only one.

Naomi smiles, and Takada looks away quickly.

* * *

Light was tall, and clean-shaven, and…no, Light _is_. Light _is_ tall, and clean-shaven, and meticulously clever, and handsome, and chivalrous, and ambitious, and morally _perfect_, and everything that Kiyomi Takada has ever wanted in a partner.

But, if for some reason, Light was out of the running...

It'll never happen. She'll never _let_ it happen. Light will always be around, and he'll always be _hers_, and they'll always be together, and they will _be_ Kira.

But, say, if she were suddenly transported to an alternate universe, where Light never existed. Or for some other reason, Light ceased to be an option.

Then, maybe.

Maybe someone like Naomi Penber.

* * *

Naomi visits at six fifteen for tea and prayer, just like every other night. Her colour has been better, of late, and Takada hopes that she might finally be recovering.

"May I make a suggestion, my Lady?" she asks, as soon as both of them are seated.

_You are too bold_, Takada thinks, ruefully. Now that Naomi has purpose, her personality seems to have metamorphosed from that of a misty-eyed believer to that of a skilled and clever soldier.

Which makes Takada feel strangely safe, somehow. Naomi might act independently. If anything were to happen to her, there might be someone else that loves Kira just as much, that might ensure his return.

Not that he'd love her, of course. He'll only ever love Takada.

_But Naomi doesn't want him in that way, anyway, _Takada reminds herself, and then scowls into her mug.

Leaning on Naomi for so long was dangerous. Now she knows how Naomi smells.

It's…it's not as if she wants to know more.

* * *

"If you wish," Takada tells her coolly.

"Well, three days ago she certainly wouldn't have been willing to take advice from you," Rae comments. "More progress."

"I was wondering if you wanted me to return to the police force," Naomi continues. "I…I did not leave on particularly bad terms. I'm not sure what you seek, of course, but would it help to have another lead, in case Bryce's account is a dead-end?"

She only asks because she's confident that Takada will decline.

"No," Takada says, more quickly than Naomi anticipated. "You are to stay by my side."

"I understand," Naomi replies demurely. "Forgive me if I was forward in making such a suggestion."

"I will…hear other suggestions, if you have them," Takada informs her, her tone resigned and overly businesslike. "You have a good brain."

_Huh. That's a victory, too_, Naomi thinks. But she hasn't planned the conversation this far, and she isn't sure what to say next.

"Make a move," Rae says, right in her ear. "Trust me, that's an opening. Make a move."

Naomi blinks at the Shinigami. She doesn't know Takada's emotions well enough to be certain of a good response.

_Can you honestly read people that well?_

_Or have you met her before?_

_Who knows what lies you're telling, really._

To top it off, Rae has also been a little too interested in the activities of Leah, and the other hackers. Which is_ completely_ unnecessary; Rae already has enough talents and capabilities with which to seriously hurt people. Naomi doesn't fancy it learning any _new _tricks to add to its repertoire.

Still, it apparently has a vested interest in the success of this mission. Naomi presumes that means she has to trust its judgment.

Fine. Here goes. She's no expert at flirting, especially not with other women, but she _is _an excellent spy, and she'll do anything to ensure L's safety.

She reaches out and pushes some of the hair from Takada's face. It's a useless gesture, really, because it flops back into place as soon as she withdraws her hand.

Takada stares at her, gob-smacked. Naomi grins awkwardly.

"I'm sorry," she says, softly. "I just…you look so tired. No one here seems to take care of you. I would suggest that you get some sleep, and leave me to take care of the monsters in your life. I know that's not possible, but at the very least, you should stop worrying about Big Jason. I _will_ protect you from him."

"You," Takada starts, and them seems to struggle to go on. "You. You can go, now. Go to…bed. Your room. I will send further instruction in the morning."

"See? I told you," Rae says cheerfully.

Naomi smiles once more, and then leaves, just as instructed.

Like a good little disciple.

* * *

In all of their time together, in all those long hotel-room conversations, in all those times Takada promised to sacrifice her life if needed, in all those months she loved until she thought her heart might bleed out, Light never once offered to protect her from anyone.

* * *

_You have good days, and bad days._

_Some days, you can muster up the self control to stop eating before you start feeling viscerally ill. Some days you manage to complete minor tasks in a vaguely competent manner. Some days you get through the whole day without hearing Near's stupid voice criticising you, or hearing rumours of how L wishes you'd just disappear._

_Some days, Matt calls. Some days, you even get to see him._

_And some days, you want to punch the shit out of your own mirror. Some days you fuck five things up before you even manage to find your way out of bed. Some days everyone seems to stare at you with disdain. Some days you feel like this whole Kira mission is going to fail, and it will be because of you._

_Some days you can't see the stitching in the sky, and you know, for sure and certain, that this life and this place is forever. All you will ever know._

_Some days Matt hugs you, and you can't handle it._

_Some days you wake up in a cold sweat, clutching at the blankets and yelling 'drive faster, damn you, DRIVE FUCKING FASTER!'._

_And you have no idea why._

* * *

That night, Kiyomi Takada dreams. She dreams of Jason, sitting at an enormous white table, sipping tea, and talking to someone whose face she cannot see. She is shackled to the bottom of his chair, forced to sit at his feet like an animal.

Jason pets her hair, then kicks her to the floor, and laughs.

When she tries to get up, gasping for breath, and clutching her side, he kicks her again.

"She's more or less useless," he says jovially to his companion. "Women, right? They're only pretty as long as they're new. Think I'll snap her neck, soon. There's another one on the way. _Blonde_, even."

_You are vile_, Takada thinks. _You are worth less than nothing._

But she's terrified. She's absolutely terrified.

The other man laughs and knocks his mug against Jason's.

"Whatever you want," he says quietly. "She's of no use to _me_."

Takada manages to get clear look at him, finally, and she sees that he is Light.

And she wakes, sobbing and tearing at her hair, her whole body perched precariously at the very edge of her mattress. It takes her a few moments to remember how to breathe.

_It was only a nightmare_.

She has bad dreams. Everyone does. They don't _mean _anything. It's just her own brain, telling her that it's worn out and trying to convince her to give up. Nothing to do with the_ real _Light.

Really.

Takada gets out of bed abruptly. Her heart is still racing. She needs a drink. Something to dull down her dreams, and smother her imagination. Naomi was right, she is _so_ tired. She's tired all the time. She needs to sleep.

There ought to be alcohol in her refrigerator, but there isn't. Instead, there are empty bottles next to the rubbish bin. Takada scrubs at her face and tries to comprehend the situation. She knows she used the last of the wine, and she's been out of vodka for months, but she also knows she had a carton of cider stashed in here, in case of emergencies. The door to her room is still locked. There is no reason for her cider to be missing.

Wait. Cider.

The _cider_ is missing.

Cider is made from apples.

Ryuk is presently having an avid conversation with the ceiling.

"_Damn _you!" she hisses venomously.

The Shinigami does not respond.

"You really are the most _useless_ race on the planet, aren't you?" she adds, loudly.

Still no answer.

Thwarted, she staggers to the sink and throws water over her face. There, now. She needs to think this through properly.

There isn't any doubt that Light loved her, because he said he did. And he never lied. Well, he lied all the time, but that was only to idiots like Misa and enemies like L and Mello. Not to her. Never to _her_.

Right?

It's just.

Logically.

Logically speaking, he lied and pretended to love Misa because Misa was useful to him. And there's no _arguing_ that Takada was useful to him, with her good looks and her fans and her intelligence.

And it's just. She knows he loved her. She just.

She's not absolutely sure. Not one hundred percent.

Everything she ever did, she did for him. Even now, she's doing it for him. She's killed so many people, so much blood on her hands. If Light doesn't love her. Or worse, if Light is _evil_, then.

Then she is wasted. Her whole world, black and empty and _wrong_.

So she has to believe in Light. Has to. Must. _Must_. Even though he burned her at the stake. Like an errant weed. Like a witch.

The memory comes rushing back to her, as ugly as ever. The acrid, choking smell of smoke. The feel of her skin blistering and _screaming and screaming and screaming_ in pain. The flames rising up above her head, and all she could do was lie down. Lie down and accept it.

She deserved it. She deserved it because she failed him and forced his hand.

She deserved it.

That's what Jason always used to tell her, too.

Without any particular destination in mind, Kiyomi Takada turns towards the hallway and starts running.

* * *

Takada runs spastically; limbs flailing, hair wild, expression hysterical and panicked. She's like an animal, or a frightened child. How can anyone ever take her seriously, when she's so ruled by her own emotions?

People are pathetic. Small, and selfish, and pathetic. And so many of them are _bad_.

"Heyyyy Raaaae," Ryuk calls from the ceiling, and then pauses to consider his own literary genius. "Hey, that rhymed. I'm so clever. Oh man, we _have_ to go raid a liquor store or something."

Takada runs past the door again, bawling now, one hand over her eyes. She's not sure of who she supports any more, and isn't that just typically weak?

And she's muttering about dying and pain and torment and flames, and surely it's not possible. People don't really _hurt_ that much.

They don't.

It's not like...

It's.

It's.

It's.

It wasn't.

_I wonder how it feels, to burn to death?_

* * *

Naomi's head is spinning, and she can't quite grasp what the hell is going on. Thirty seconds ago, she was asleep, and dreaming about sitting in a hammock with Raye and L, and then suddenly her door was thrown open and smashed into the wall and now she has two arms full of hysterical Kiyomi Takada.

"Aimnshor," Takada mutters into her shoulder. "Aimnshor. Aimnshor! Naomi!"

"It's okay," Naomi murmurs, glancing angrily at Rae.

_You were supposed to warn me of things like this, you bastard._

"I don't know what she's so upset about," it says sulkily, but it sounds odd.

"But I'm not," Takada says miserably. She's trembling and clutching Naomi's shoulders. "I don't. I'm not. Oh god, I shouldn't be saying this to _you_, of all people."

Something about her tone forces Naomi to wake up properly. Her words suddenly sound very, very important. Naomi frowns. Rae isn't prompting her. She'll have to guess this one for herself.

_Not sure about what? How you feel about this persona I've presented to you? Whether or not you're doing the right thing? Whether you're in love with Light?_ _Whether you can go on?_

_Whether you're safe from Jason?_

It doesn't matter, really. There is only one answer she needs to give.

She pushes Takada back, gently, and strokes the hair away from her eyes. She can afford to be confident, now.

They have two days left, until ridiculous numbers of people start dying, and L will be sorely tempted to sacrifice himself. She has to try.

"My lady," she says, quietly, clearly. "_You_ are my Kira, and I will follow you to the ends of the earth. You can tell me anything."

Her words seem to shock Takada out of her panic. She stares at Naomi with huge, pink-rimmed eyes.

"What?" she manages. "Wh-what are you saying? Kira is Kira. Kira is justice."

"I know that," Naomi replies, feigning shame. "Of course I know. Kira is my religion, my Lady. But you are my leader."

"Did L _say_ that you could say this stuff?" Rae demands. "I don't think this was in the script, Penber."

"Your leader," Takada echoes.

Naomi ducks her head. There is no turning back now. She has to do this, and she has to make it work.

"I love you," she says softly. "How could I not, after seeing what you go through? After seeing your devotion? After seeing how _good_ you are. Kira teaches us to follow what is right? Well...I follow _you_. And I will follow you anywhere."

Takada looks like she might faint. Naomi knows how she feels. She puts one hand on the side of Takada's face and waits for a response, and hopes like hell that she's judged this right.

* * *

_You_.

Naomi is just sitting there. She's not saying anything. She's just sitting there, calmly, like she hasn't dropped a bomb on Takada's world, like _they're not still wrapped up in each others arms_.

_You love me._

She knew it, of course. She knew all along. Naomi is too vague and silly to be able to separate Kira's ideals from a human form. Takada has become her stand-in god. She loves Takada.

Then, she'll protect Takada. She's completely at Takada's mercy, here. A tool to be used as needed. She'll shield Takada from danger, from pain, from Jason.

She's no Light. She's a poor stand-in. But she's not a stand in at all, really. Naomi and Light aren't even on the same _page_.

And Takada isn't sure. Wasn't sure. Has to be sure.

But.

If Naomi will see her through this time, safe and healthy and alive, then won't it be worth it? Light loves her (doesn't he, _doesn't he_?) and he'd understand. She's doing what she has to do. She needs her mental and emotional health intact, as much as her physical health.

She wants to be loved. She wants to be safe. She wants to be special.

And when Kira comes back, she'll be all of these things, automatically. But she wants them, she needs them, _now_.

And Naomi...Naomi is pretty.

That doesn't _matter_, of course. She loves Light. She'll do anything for Light. As long as she is absolutely clear on that, she can do anything else she needs to.

He doesn't even need to know.

"I'm just…it's just been a long day," she says, sidestepping Naomi's original question.

Light loves her. He _has_ to. Just because he never ever seemed to love anyone else, doesn't mean it wasn't real for _her_. They were _soulmates_.

She has to do this. It doesn't matter whether she doubts. It doesn't matter whether she's scared.

She's stuck here. Wedged into place.

And she can't remember the last time she felt anything other than fear, and panic, and grim determination, and sheer, blind, scrabbling hope.

Until Naomi came along, and lit this...this giddy little spark. And protected her.

_Maybe. Maybe Naomi Penber_.

She's stuck. She has nowhere to go but forward. In two days time, she will have even more blood on her hands. More criminals. A decreasing degree of certainty of conviction.

She _is_ tired. She wants to rest.

"You can sleep here, if you want," Naomi offers. "I'll watch over you."

_You love me_, Takada thinks, again, and realises that it's the best thought she's had in weeks.

Her stability is Naomi. Her stability _must_ be Light.

Takada leans in, and then drags Naomi down by the nape of her neck when she doesn't move fast enough.

The kiss is nothing. She's used to being dominated and controlled, but Naomi's lips are unresisting, soft and warm. Takada forces her to open her mouth, just to prove a point, and Naomi gasps and clings to her.

She's kissing another woman.

Takada pulls away, raising one hand to touch her lips.

She feels strange. She wants. Her knees are weak. Naomi looks calm and unruffled, and Takada wants to make her _scream_. She wants to tie Naomi to her side.

She's aroused for the first time in years, and she's not even thinking of Light.

_Light_.

He's the centre of her fucking universe and she feels _filthy_ and sometimes she thinks that it doesn't matter what she does, Big Jason will get her in the end.

Does she doubt Light?

Oh yes, she does.

She shoves her face into Naomi's shoulder, so hard that it _must_ hurt, and clutches around her torso with both arms.

"Save me, Naomi Penber," she begs, out loud, because everything is a mess, and she has no idea what she's doing. "Save me."

There is a horrible, awful pause. Naomi seems to be considering something.

"Yes," she replies, voice low and genuine. "Yes, I will."

* * *

Rae might be a fool, but the Shinigami is excellent at picking up on her nuances and body language, and it immediately recognises the message in her voice.

_I am N. I work for L. And I will save everyone that I can_.

Takada is a battered woman, one who has come to her for help, everything else aside. Naomi isn't Kira. She doesn't discriminate between those she saves. If Takada is truly in hell, of course, Naomi cannot deliver her from that. But she can incarcerate Big Jason and Light, and give Takada a better life.

If that is the choice that Takada has made.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Rae says accusingly. "You actually want to try and protect this woman from her own stupid circumstances?"

_I almost feel like she's being interfered with, somehow_, Naomi thinks, nodding once in response. _And I'm not even sure how that's possible, but something about this whole situation feels...off._

_And I'm worried that Takada is just another victim. No matter what she might have done._

"L will be so pleased," Rae continues, sarcastically. "I'll tell him immediately."

_L wants to save someone who used the death note to kill dozens of people. He'd better understand_, Naomi thinks, vehemently.

But really, what's he going to do?

This is her mission, and she's calling the shots. And she'll do whatever she needs to do to save as many people as possible.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you for reading


	39. Want

notes/warnings

+ swearing, past abuse, etc etc.

+ also warning for some fairly sexually-charged thoughts

* * *

**Want**

"One of the benefits of divided remote surveillance," L declares, "is that I can eat as much chocolate as I like, without consequence."

He helps himself to another piece of torte. Rae rolls its eyes at him. It seems to be annoyed by everything that he does.

"You can stop rhapsodising about your food now," it says derisively. "You heard the most recent conversation, I take it?"

"Yes, and then I saw Naomi nod at nothing, after Takada fell asleep," L surmises. "The two of you were communicating, I presume?"

"No, she's just gone mad. Of _course_ we were communicating, you idiot!"

L stops, a forkful of velvety chocolate halfway to his mouth.

_You idiot._

_Matsuda. _

_I miss you, you idiot._

"And Naomi has indicated that she actually does want to save Takada, if she possibly can. I'm not sure what she wants to save her from, other than Big Jason and a non-existent Light, but I think this could be seriously problematic."

L forces himself to concentrate.

"Naomi is compassionate," he murmurs. "That is both a weakness and a strength."

"A weakness, I'd say," Rae snorts. "Did you see them making out?"

"One kiss is not making out," L replies, arguing semantics, buying himself a little time to think.

He hasn't informed Naomi of his suspicions of the hell-god's interference, of course. And until L knows more about him, there's little point in worrying Naomi over the possible existence of a probably-unbeatable enemy.

But there _is_ something that she ought to know, now. Something that he hasn't told her yet. Something that he kept secret from all of them, because he was trying to protect Mail.

But perhaps now would be the time to tell his deputy.

He trusts her.

"You are missing the _point_!" Rae snaps.

"No, I am not missing the point," L informs it primly. "I am supportive of Naomi's decision to try and save Takada. If nothing else, that should bring us to the attention of the hell-god. And I would very much like a word with him."

"Not this _again_," Rae grits, clenching its fists. "Look, I've _told_ you-"

"And you have also proven that you have no rational argument," L interrupts.

He feels strangely tense. Rae makes everything tense. Sometimes L feels like his Shinigami is going to explode out of sheer force of hatred for him, and kill a lot of bystanders in the process. Sometimes he finds it harder to think when he's around Rae, maybe because he's always waiting for some disparaging criticism of his actions, his decisions, his life.

Sometimes he wonders if it's just because he misses brown-eyed Rae so damn much.

"It is time that Naomi knew what we know about the redemption possibility," L continues. "If she wishes to try and save Kiyomi Takada, then she ought to at least know what she is up against. However, she does not need to know my theories regarding the god of hell."

"Interesting," Rae concedes. "So you are...convinced that Takada is still in hell, even though she is here?"

"Ninety-one percent," L confirms. "It is likely, based on past events. Her name and lifespan have not become any clearer?"

"Not at all."

"And Naomi's lifespan still has plenty of time left?"

"Ha ha. Subtle."

L smiles.

"Worth a try."

"You couldn't outsmart a can of tomatoes, Lawliet. I'm worried for everyone who looks up to you."

L stares at his loaded fork, and then places it back on the plate, untouched.

"Do we always have to part company on such bitter terms, Shinigami?" he wonders.

"Yes, because I hate you," Rae tells him, and leaves.

* * *

Naomi lies on her back, both arms stretched out over her pillow, trying to force her aching head to make sense of everything she's just learned.

There is a...a way out of hell. A way _out_. A choice. A chance for redemption.

It is a good thing, of course. Naomi wholeheartedly supports the notion of giving people second chances. She hates the idea that there are people out there who are tortured for all eternity.

Even if hell _is _what keeps Light locked up, far, far away from L.

And Takada...Takada certainly fits the bill. She's been tormented since she died, and now here she is, thrust into some bizarre situation. It makes sense that this is her opportunity.

From what Rae told her, L seems to be under the impression that the redemption chance cannot be influenced by anyone other than the person themselves. Otherwise, Naomi is certain he'd be pulling out all of the stops to try and save his Mello. Perhaps now, with Takada being here in the real world, he is beginning to have his doubts about that, as well.

It's been the night for doubts, apparently.

Kiyomi Takada is sleeping against her side. She fell asleep almost immediately after Naomi agreed to save her, which is telling in itself. She's clearly been terrified to the point of exhaustion, probably for a long time.

No one deserves that.

Not even...well, maybe Light. But _only_ Light.

In the morning, Takada will either awkwardly like her, or viciously hate her. Naomi is hoping for the former, of course. She needs to save Takada in under forty-eight hours. Vitriol is only going to make that already-impossible task even more difficult.

But still. L agrees. He _agrees_ with her plan, and that's pretty amazing. He's obviously happy with her work so far. As happy as he can be, all frightened and alone in his van, with Rae dropping by to insult him every so often.

_If he knew how you felt about him, perhaps he'd feel safe, too_, she thinks.

But of course, she can't say that out loud, either.

* * *

_Sometimes, just sometimes, you get these strange mental flashes. Flashes of things that never happened; impossible things._

_Daydreams. Just daydreams. No other explanation for it._

_You see Jasmine and Gemma dissolve to nothing. You see the seams in the sky crack open and come apart, apocalyptic and wonderful. You see a grainy, distorted image of Matt, full of wounds and bleeding to death._

_The flashes never last long, but they make you feel strange. Incapacitated and angry and panicked and bizarrely…hopeful._

_You know. You know you're going mad. It's only a matter of time._

* * *

Takada wakes slowly, reluctantly, immediately aware of everything that has happened, and everything she's done.

The uncertainty hangs over her like a curse.

_What…what have I done?_

She can undo it, of course. She can tell Naomi that she was simply feeling vulnerable last night, and that Naomi must be content with being unrequited, and go about her business as if nothing ever happened. Naomi will tolerate that. Naomi will do as she asks.

And…her Light. She cannot abandon her Light. She loves Light. She _must_ love Light, because she must be prepared to risk her life in order to save him.

But…Naomi will do as she asks. And, _god_. To feel _safe_.

She has not slept so soundly in…months? Years?

No, she must choose. She must decide to be selfish or decide to be selfless. She _must_ make that choice.

Fingers push through her hair, unexpected and pleasant. Takada jerks and looks up. Naomi smiles at her from the armchair next to the bed. She has a book open in her lap. She is not the least bit intimidating or demanding.

_You._

_You are._

Takada knows that she must choose Light.

But perhaps…she doesn't have to decide just yet. She can pretend to think about it.

She touches Naomi's hand.

* * *

"Most of the women here have been hurt in some way," Takada explains. "That is not why I accepted them, of course. Disciples are chosen based on merit and devotion to Kira. The statistic is incidental."

"A cross-section of the world we live in?" Naomi asks, biting her lip. "That is truly terrible."

"Yes," Takada agrees. "We need Kira now, more than ever."

"It's a good thing we've got you, then," Naomi says affectionately.

Takada pointedly ignores that statement.

"In the first world, Leah was severely debilitated by disease. Her son was her designated carer. He beat her on a regular basis. She killed herself to escape."

"Dear god," Naomi replies, genuinely horrified. "That's…but she seems too cheerful."

"She tells me it is amazing just to have legs that work," Takada replies somberly. "She has a very positive disposition. Margaret, on the other hand, struggles with her past demons. She was robbed at knifepoint, and never recovered, psychologically. She has done well under training, though. She tells me she feels safer now that she is able to wield a weapon with confidence."

_Then, perhaps you really have done something good_, Naomi thinks.

"I'm pleased to hear that," she says, out loud.

"Grianna's problems were more…domestic. Her first husband turned her daughter against her, and then shot her and her second husband dead in a jealous rage."

_Two husbands, huh? Possibly more? Being a supermodel must be an unstable life, I guess_.

"Is that why she's so angry all the time?" she wonders. "I thought Kira gave people peace."

"He will," Takada replies, voice heavy. "Give it a little time, Naomi. Not everyone has your faith."

Takada pauses, then, and eyes her carefully.

"You _do_ still want to restore Kira, right?" she asks.

"I will do anything you ask me to," Naomi replies dutifully.

"Even if he takes me away from you?"

"I expect nothing from you but guidance," Naomi tells her. "Anything more is a blessing, and one I probably don't deserve. I accept that you were in a bad place last night, but I am glad I have told you the truth."

It takes Naomi a few seconds to realize that there's no one beside her any more. Takada has stopped in her tracks.

"You had better save me, Naomi Penber," she chokes, and her voice sounds dark, and angry. "You promised. You had better pay me attention, all the time, because nothing had better happen to me."

Naomi stares at her curiously.

_What is this?_

_Are you actually having second thoughts?_

_Dear god, am I saving this woman from Light by duping her for her heart?_

_I'm._

_I'm no better than._

_No, that's not true. The thing that matters is getting her away from Light. Getting her out of hell. Then she can find someone good. I'll help her._

"Of…of course," she manages. "I stand by my word."

"Good. Offer me your arm."

Naomi blinks, taken aback.

"My…you want…"

"And don't make me ask twice," Takada adds, curtly.

* * *

"Takada's men have not yet managed to find a way into the encrypted file," L comments. "Things are working out in our favour."

"So that's your strategy? Plan things badly and hope you get lucky?" Rae scoffs.

"Yes. I am a terrible person," L deadpans.

His Shinigami makes him feel awkward and hyperreactive, like he's been wound too tightly. It also makes him horribly unhappy.

And yet, he always wants to see it. There is no predicting exactly when Rae will show up, but L sometimes finds himself counting the minutes, anyway.

Not that it matters. Rae has to be angry and hateful. That's just the way things are. L will not complain, or wish that Rae would change back, because Rae has to be safe.

"I know you're being sarcastic. Dick."

"My name is L, actually," L replies, because it's not as if he doesn't relish their banter.

Rae is intelligent. Rae is a good detective. He likes Rae, maybe. He sees himself in Rae.

He likes Rae.

And Rae still supports the ideals of the original Kira, and _fuck_ Light for that. Fuck Light for taking things away from him even now, even when he's not around.

Or not around _yet_, anyway. Of course, that's only a matter of time. Perhaps not much time, either.

L cocks his head. He can't hear bells. Perhaps he'll see the end of today.

He shouldn't be thinking of himself. Naomi is the one who's at risk right now, and she's getting unnervingly close to Takada.

"The _entirety_ of your name is L," Rae says disdainfully. "I know all your secrets, Lawliet."

_No you don't. Not quite._

"Please tell Naomi that we will hold off on decreasing the security level of the Mary Cleese file until we feel that it is necessary," L replies, politely changing the subject. "I do not presently believe that giving Takada more information will increase her trust in Naomi. Naomi's position with her is already ideal, now she must simply ask the right questions."

"She and I both know that," Rae snaps. "There haven't been any good opportunities yet. I know what I'm doing."

"Of course," L says distantly, touching the edge of his thumb to his teeth. "Additionally, please tell her to remove the taps on her upper arm and chest. She ought to do that as soon as possible."

"You really think Naomi might go that far?" Rae asks. "You think _Takada_ will?"

"She might," L theorises. "It is better for us to be prepared. The tap on her foot can remain, of course. And the one in her ear. Naomi knows the correct way to dispose of the others. There are no cameras in her en suite toilet. There is only a six percent chance of repercussions."

"Understood," Rae informs him, examining him with cold, red eyes. "A real fucking hero you are, aren't you? You won't kill people quickly, but you're happy to manipulate and lie and betray and _hurt_, in order to get what you want."

"The original Kira did very similar things," L points out wearily.

"For good reasons," Rae spits. "He wasn't just…seeking glory."

_And that is what you think of me, is it?_

L really shouldn't place so much value in Rae's opinion of him.

Although…didn't Rae practically declare him a hero for what he did to his mother? Surely that counts for something.

L likes to think so, anyway.

"Actually, I think that is exactly what he sought," L replies. "Please go quickly, now. I need you to be with Naomi."

* * *

_You don't have any right to judge anyone shut up shut up shut up. You are stupid, L, and you don't know anything. You'll never know anything._

_You are morally lacking. You have no right. None at all._

_None._

Kiyomi Takada burned to death, and did she deserve that?

_Shut up shut up shut up._

_I'm fine. Everything is okay._

* * *

Naomi isn't surprised by L's instructions, but she is a little concerned by the implications therein. She has no problems with the concept of sleeping with another woman, in isolation. But she's lying to Takada. She's lying to a harmed, damaged woman and that is becoming harder and harder to stomach.

_Isn't there a way to save everyone without harming anyone?_

No, of course there isn't. If there was, L wouldn't ever torture or betray anyone. He'd be the first in line, if there was some way to capture all criminals cleanly and safely.

Wouldn't he?

Of course he would. There's…there's barely anything bad in L at all. Barely anything.

And Naomi would never, ever tell her boss that the reason Light fooled her so expertly was because he reminded her of L.

And there's no doubt that L learns from other people's mistakes. Perhaps, if the original Kira had never happened, and he'd been presented with the death note with no spectator knowledge of how intoxicating that power could be, of how wrong everything could become, of how it would destroy his own life and the lives of everyone around him…

Perhaps, then.

Perhaps.

Naomi scowls at her reflection. So what? So if their lives had been completely different, then L might have been Kira. And maybe, if the note had come to her first, then she might have been Kira. And hey, if she'd grown up in Wammy's, instead of in Osaka, maybe she'd be married to Mail instead of Raye. It's pointless to argue what might have been. They are who they are, nurture or nature. And L has proven his moral strength over and over again.

Naomi pulls the adhesive spot from her arm and places it on the sink. The taps aren't water-soluble, of course, that would be ridiculous. But they do degrade to the point of being unrecognizable if exposed to solutions of over twenty percent alcohol.

Such as common mouthwash.

Watari is a genius. Naomi drops both taps into a cup of green liquid, and then dumps the contents into the toilet.

No one will ever know. Watari is a genius, and L thinks of everything. They are an excellent team, and Naomi shouldn't be jealous of that. But maybe she is, a little. She wants to be L's deputy forever. She won't let Kira get her. She won't let this godforsaken illness kill her. And she won't _lose_. She won't do anything that might separate her from her job, her boss.

Her husband, though. Her husband is going to be a problem. She can't forget. When this mission is over, then…

Then.

Then, she'll tackle that when she comes to it. Something will work out. Something always does. At this rate she might just tell L that she's not leaving his side and she's not destroying her marriage and he'd better just make things work.

He will. She has confidence in L. She really does.

Naomi flushes the toilet. She can hear footsteps in the hall outside, moving closer and closer. Takada, probably. She washes her hands in the sink, just for authenticity.

The fact that L has some personality similarities with the original Kira is completely irrelevant. It is of no consequence to anyone. L is the hero for everyone who didn't follow Light.

The knock on the door is both refined and demanding.

"Penber," Takada calls. "Hurry up. Leah needs to speak to you."

Naomi pushes the door open, a little taken aback by how close Takada is standing. She smiles.

"I should have a harsh word with Leah about turning you into her errand girl," she says warmly, curling one arm around Takada's neck.

"I came here of my own choosing," Takada tells her irritably. A second later, she seems to realize the implications of that statement and immediately starts scrutinizing the floor.

It's not hard to be affectionate, especially not to someone as damaged as Takada. Naomi kisses her on the cheek.

"If you're sure, my Kimiko," she murmurs, and Takada does not correct her.

* * *

Naomi is.

Naomi is all over her. Like a bad smell. Like a rash. Like the best, most luxurious sort of massage. And she seems to grow more confident by the hour. She's taking liberties, now. Not in front of the others, but respectfully, privately.

And Takada…Takada feels good. And terrified. But mostly good. A lot of good. And then she starts thinking about Light again, and her whole world comes crashing down.

In a way, Naomi debased her, last night. Naomi pledged loyalty to _her_. If Takada expressed doubts in Kira, in the death note, in the mass slaughter of probably-criminals, then Naomi would probably support her in a heartbeat.

If.

If she chose Naomi, then she could break away from all of this. Leave everything, and walk away, and not even be empty-handed. Or alone. She could start again, and _oh god, _isn't that tempting? No more Jason. No more heartache. No more pain. Just quiet teasing and intelligent company, and love that isn't demanding of her entire soul, or commandeering of her morality.

No more Light.

She can't. She _can't_.

She can't think about it, anyway.

She wants Naomi to save her. She wants Naomi to _force_ her away from this place. She wants to go to sleep and be rescued, princess-style, from all of this crap, from this draining, exhausting _life_.

But she can't. She can't have that.

Can she?

No.

No, of course not. That is absurd.

But for now, she can pretend that she might have it, one day. She can flirt, and touch, and take some comfort for herself. She can surrender everything but her ideals. She can be happy, maybe, for a little while.

Not for long, though.

Because it comes down to this. Light, or not Light. Either she follows his ideals to the bitter end, saves him, and devotes the rest of her life to him, or.

Or.

Or.

Maybe.

Yes, maybe. Takada can have that much, right? She can have maybe. If she chooses Light in the end, then today, she can have maybe.

He owes her that much.

* * *

"This is fucking ridiculous," Raye says, shoving uselessly at the dashboard. "This is stupid. She's not even a good fucking flirt. Surely she can see that there's no _way_ anyone would actually fall for a line like that!"

"Luckily for your wife, Kimiko _doesn't_ seem to see that at all," Mail says, and he sounds almost…displeased.

As if this has anything to do with him. His heart is shriveled and black and cold and broken. He can't possibly understand what Raye is going through.

"I didn't ask for your opinion," he says hotly.

"I don't need to wait for a request," Mail retorts. "You've spent the last twenty minutes shouting at me."

"I'm _not_ shouting at you, I'm shouting at her! And our stupid boss!"

"Shouting near me, then," Mail says with a shrug. "Also, one more comment about L, and I will fuckin' hit you."

"Of course you will," Raye snarls.

That's just it, isn't it? He's surrounded by L's supporters and fans. Everyone loves him. He's an emotionally-stunted underweight half-blind failure of a detective, and everyone fucking loves him.

Well, no more. No more of this. Soon. Takada better enjoy Naomi while she's got her, because once this is over, no one else is ever going to get their hands on his wife again.

It was obvious that she didn't actually want someone to try out her new imported brand of tea. It was obvious she was just going to kiss Naomi when she got there. Raye is a much better flirt, a much better partner, and a much better person in general.

He has nothing to worry about.

And he's not jealous, really.

Okay, maybe a little. But that's only because his beautiful, amazing wife is so magnetic that even total strangers – even completely straight women – are drawn to her. He's allowed to be a _little_ worried. Besides, Takada is a murdering psychopath. There's no telling what she might want from a relationship.

Raye's mind briefly flits through a thousand unspeakable acts, from bedroom sadomasochism to suicide bombing.

_L has the visual feed. He won't let anything bad happen._

_Will he?_

It's obvious that Naomi's safety is not L's number one priority, or she wouldn't be stuck in that horrible position in the first place. No, L cares about catching criminals. And he's put Raye in a position where Raye can't speak his mind or demand L tell him how Naomi is going, because Mail is _right there_.

And Mail never sleeps, because he's a freak. An ugly freak. No wonder his apparently-pretty blonde friend never loved him back.

Raye wonders if there are actually any geniuses out there who can manage normal romance. L's love life is even stranger than Mail's, although he probably doesn't realize that his giant monster-god has feelings for him.

And fuck this, Raye doesn't _care_ about any of them, anyway. When this mission is over, he and Naomi are moving to another country. The States, preferably. His home town. A long, long way from L, and Rae, and Mail, and this horrible, nightmarish life.

Takada kisses Naomi again, loud enough to be audible. Raye feels like someone is ripping out his soul.

_That's my wife_.

There isn't long to go, now, before the case comes to an end.

Raye clings to that thought.

* * *

Humans, for the most part, are disgusting. Animalistic and immoral. Takada kisses Naomi like a schoolgirl; slow, chaste, and hesitant. Naomi responds in kind. She's married, but it's not like she's morally perfect.

She works for L, after all.

Anyway, there are two reasonably attractive Japanese women making out in the room. It's oddly like being present for a B-grade porn magazine photoshoot.

Humans are vile.

Naomi shouldn't be resorting to this sort of temptressing, and she _must_ be feeling guilty about tricking Takada. Takada, is worse, of course. She's supposed to be cleansing the world of evil, not trying to get to swallow the tonsils of some girl she barely knows.

Humans are disgusting. Sex is pretty disgusting too. And boring.

The only way it would be even remotely tolerable is if it were L, with his hands chained above his head and his patch pushed over his good eye and his shirt rucked up high on his chest, panting and wanting and-

_What the fuck am I thinking?_

* * *

Kiyomi Takada is beautiful, there's no arguing that point. She has enormous dark eyes and perfect hair, fine facial features and unusually pronounced curves. She kisses well, soft and warm, and just a little bit controlling.

But all Naomi can think about is Raye.

This will be hard for him, undoubtedly. He's probably swearing and grumbling and giving Mail a hard time right now. He's always been the type to fret. He's always been a lot of things that don't mesh well with their line of work.

But god, she misses him. She misses his strong arms, and the way he can occasionally read her mind. She misses their little in-jokes, and spending all day at the shooting range, and the way he complains when she proves herself a better marksman than him.

And she misses being honest, of course. There is fear in Takada's kisses, fear of darkness, fear of Jason, fear of rejection. Fear of being wrong.

Naomi wants to save Takada. She wants to show her that there is still good in the world. She wants to pull her out of hell, once and for all.

And then, she wants to walk away.

Takada stops, and hides her face in the side of Naomi's neck.

"If you really do save me, Naomi Penber," she says softly, "then that will make you a hero. I'm not sure I believe that such heroes exist."

Naomi runs one hand up and down her back.

_Look at what he's done to you. Look at what they've both done to you. _

There are heroes left in the world. There are. L is the hero for everyone who did not choose Light.

"What's wrong, my Lady," Naomi whispers. "What ails you?"

Takada does not answer for a long time. Naomi leans against the wall. Takada is heavy, and she feels nauseous. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day. Everything must happen tomorrow.

For some completely unknown reason, Rae runs screaming from the room.

"I think Kira tried to kill me," Takada says softly. "I think he was the one who had me set myself alight."

Naomi stares at her, taken aback.

_All…all right._

_This is some sort of test, isn't it?_

"But he loves you, my Lady," she replies. "Surely he would never, ever do something like that. Kira is _good_."

"Of course," Takada says indulgently, with a tiny smile that fades quickly. "And…if he did? Which of us would you renounce?"

Naomi drops away from Takada and sinks halfway to the floor, her feet struggling for purchase on the carpet. Her head is spinning, she feels too weak to stand, and collapsing is a suitably dramatic response. Rae was right. Her illness _is_ useful. At times, anyway.

Until it kills her.

She knocks her head against the wall with a loud _thunk_.

"I would…I would have to renounce my god," she stutters, expression aghast. "No, my Lady. It's not true. You said it was not true. Why would any of us be trying to restore anyone who did something like that to _you_? It's not possible. It cannot be possible. Right?"

"You have more faith in me than in Kira," Takada comments.

Naomi stares at the floor.

"I…must," she says, slowly. "Oh god. Are you going to throw me out of the disciples, Kimiko?"

Takada takes her hand and pulls her to her feet.

"No, Penber. Absolutely not. You have duty here, remember?"

"Right. I have to be your hero," Naomi agrees weakly.

"You think too highly of your capabilities" Takada warns coldly, but she looks tremendously pleased, all the same.

* * *

The thing is this; Takada would really like to tell Naomi about the death note. She wants to know what someone else would think of her, knowing the truth.

No. She wants to know what _Naomi_ would think of her.

Naomi, and no-one else.

She already knows what Light thinks of her, after all.

_Expendable._

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ this is the most verbose arc yet! we are heading towards the end now, though, I promise.

+ updating a day early! I feel so accomplished.

+ thank you for taking the time to read this. hope everyone has a lovely weekend.


	40. Spectator

notes/warnings

+ warning for swearing and implied past assault.

+ warning for moderately sexual situations. yeehaw.

* * *

**Spectator**

_And sometimes you don't dream at all. Or at least, you don't dream of much. Sometimes you close your eyes and find yourself floating in an empty world, a world of stars and open sky and inky shadows and nothing else. _

_Sometimes you imagine that there is an angel standing over you, menacing, judgmental, and huge. Usually that angel looks like Jasmine._

_Usually you wake, feeling lost and ashamed._

_Sometimes, though. Sometimes all you can think about is the locket around the angel's neck, and how much you'd like to take it for yourself._

_You don't know what that means, either. _

_Probably, it just means that you're a terrible person._

* * *

"Oh, hey," Ryuk says brightly, crawling out of the window to perch beside her on the roof. "How are things?"

Jas regards him with mild distaste.

"You do not usually seek me out," she comments. "Usually you have to be summoned. Multiple times, in fact. What is it, Ryuk?"

"Eh," he says, and shrugs. "I'm bored, I guess."

"You are always bored. Ergo, that is not a valid reason for the change in your behaviour."

Well, actually, he _wasn't_ bored when he was with _Emma_. But the stupid queen had to assign him some ridiculous, long-winded job, didn't she?

"More bored than usual," Ryuk tells her. There's no way he's telling Jas about his new partnership with Emma. That's a _secret_. "I mean, Takada is bo-ring, there's almost never anything good to eat, and even the kid won't talk to me."

"That….creature is not your child," Jas warns him. "Or your sibling. Or your protégé. You would do well to remember that."

"Geeze, you're so full of hate," Ryuk mutters, stretching his wings. "Guess it must suck, having to judge people all day long. Hey, I'm sure Takada would be happy to take over from you."

"Shut up," Jas snaps.

"Charming mood you're in," Ryuk observes. "What's bothering you? Is blondie trying to detective his way out of his own hell again?"

Jas glares at him.

_Oooh, lucky guess_, Ryuk thinks, triumphantly.

"Maybe you need to tighten your mind control?" he suggests cheerily.

Jas regards him for a long moment.

"I'm…I'm not sure," she says, eventually. "There are so many people, and there is still only one of me. I am worried about…"

Jas shakes her head, suddenly, and glares at him.

"That's enough," she says, sharply.

"Why _is_ there only one of you, anyway?" Ryuk muses. "Is that because there's only one note? You know, some of the other Shinigami say the notebook is what makes you powerful. Without it, you'd just be one of us."

"My note is not of your concern,' Jas replies coldly, apparently wise to his intentions.

But that doesn't matter. The notebook can wait. The queen just _said_ things. In front of him. Like he wasn't even there. Like she wasn't paying _attention._

The queen is reaching some sort of maximum capacity. And she's worried.

She's supposed to be infinite. Instead she's distracted. And she's _worried_.

_The queen is growing weaker_.

Ryuk grins to himself. Emma _will_ be pleased.

* * *

Jas buries her face in her hands.

She feels like she is stretched too thin, torn between too many people. Too many _geniuses_. And too many bad souls, evil souls, demanding to be tormented and judged.

She said too much. And in front of _Ryuk_, of all death gods. Sometimes she struggles just to remain a single, coherent entity. She can't stop second guessing herself. She has to pour all of her focus into L, and the things around him. So much is at stake, right now. And there is so much still to come. And she has frightened him, now, by showing him the extent of hell. He knows too much, perhaps.

But he must know. He _must_. He cannot fail her. He _must_ know because he _must_ win. She knew that all along.

Still. She is risking too much. The risk is almost ridiculous. What will she be, if an innocent human lifespan must be cut short so that another might be sufficiently judged? What will separate her from the other Shinigami, then?

_This note. Always, this note_.

And it will always be her note. She will always have power. She must try to use it well.

And…a chance must never be interfered with. That would be the worst thing in the world.

And yet…even with Takada's danger-riddled hell, even with a thousand million writhing human souls demanding her attention, her eyes are always drawn back to Keehl.

So pretty. So alone. So weak.

She'd like to take him for herself. But there are rules. The rules must be followed. She made her own rules, and she sticks to them.

But if…

Keehl makes her react. He makes her want to do crazy things.

Everything she does is measured and precise. It must be. If she reacts excessively, if she _thinks_ too hard, if she lashes out - becomes panicked - for even a moment…

She isn't sure what will happen. But she feels exhausted and worn out. And she has influence on so many lives.

Powerful influence. Shinigami can be contracted, and enlisted. But humans can only be controlled. One stray thought in the mind of the queen, and a thousand humans might momentarily go mad. Might do terrible things, unpredictable things, things they might never ordinarily do.

She's not even sure of the extent of it. This has never happened before. She's never felt so…exceeded, before.

Keehl makes her want to have stray thoughts all the time.

* * *

Okay. Okay, okay.

Time to think this through.

There actually isn't anything _wrong_ with exploring new strategies to defeat and break L, and there's certainly nothing wrong with visually fantasizing about such tactics. Being human, and very lonely, L is likely to have _some_ sexual weaknesses.

Therefore, being aware that he is at least a slightly sexual being is…is nothing but good planning.

Not that such planning will be needed. L has his own future all sewn up. Solve case, use death note, die.

L deserves to die.

_Kiyomi Takada didn't deserve to die._

Everything is fine.

Everything is going…

Everything.

* * *

"So, let's talk about something new," Rae suggests, with malevolent cheer.

"All right," L obliges. "Let's talk about round chocolates that are dipped in sprinkles. We have not discussed those yet, but I think I would like obtain some when this case is over."

"Let's talk about how you could use the death note to protect Naomi," Rae counters.

L frowns at the dashboard.

"We have had this conversation before, Shinigami," he says dolefully. "I will not use the note."

"Don't you remember what I told you? This is a _conditional _death note. With no time limit. All you need to do is write that Kiyomi Takada will die _if_ she attempts to kill Naomi."

L chews delicately on his thumbnail.

"I would question whether this is the scenario in which you anticipated I would use the note, but I feel that would be an insult to your intelligence," he murmurs.

"Oh no," Rae assures him. "You'll know when you reach that point. You'll realise that you don't have any option _other_ than to use the note."

"It's an interesting thought, though," L muses. "Suppose that, before the last year is finished, I pen a conditional death. And then the conditions for that death are never met. Or the conditions are not met before the end of our time together. Would you still ascend the throne?"

_What if I write 'only dies if it w__ill not enable Rae to be king'? Or what if the conditions are absolutely laughable, like 'will die only if succeeds in drinking the Pacific Ocean'? Then what? What does it mean for you?_

"Consider it your own personal clairvoyant," Rae tells him brightly. "If that person will eventually die because of your entry into the death note, then I will become king at the end of this year."

L tilts his head.

"I can use the note to see the future?" he whispers. "Do you honestly think that will tempt me sufficiently?"

_Or do you just believe that I will become convinced that you are a human in hell, and feel obligated to write down a name in order to redeem you?_

Rae grins at him with a strange mixture of glee and intense dislike.

"And furthermore," L continues, "this means that either the king or the queen can see the future. After all, someone must verify whether my written conditions will result in death."

_And I suspect it is probably the queen._

_Who is possibly the hell-god._

_Which is terrifying. How can I possibly beat an enemy that already knows my ultimate fate?_

"There is so much about the world that you don't know, L," Rae tells him triumphantly.

L nods vaguely. His mind is whirling around inside his head, trying to decipher this new information.

_No, it doesn't need to mean that_, he realizes with a jolt. _The queen does not have to be able to see the future._

_All she needs is to convince you that she can see the future._

_And if you are one of her charges, then that…_

_That would be easy._

* * *

"I've been thinking," Naomi says, falling into step beside Takada. "I've been thinking about…about everything."

"I expected you to," Takada says, a little warily. "But now is the time for tea, not heavy discussion."

"Kira really did kill you, didn't he?" Naomi says abruptly.

Takada stops dead. She looks like she might burst into tears.

"Why," she manages. "Why would you…say that?"

"Because you never would have mentioned it, otherwise," Naomi replies. "And…and why would you look twice at someone like me, unless Kira had done something really bad to you?"

"Don't," Takada snaps. "Don't compare yourself with him."

_You've been evaluating the two of us_, Naomi realises. _Pros and cons. Me versus Light. Shit. You have, haven't you?_

_You really are having doubts._

She doesn't have a firm plan, right now. She's testing out the waters. She needs to know just how uncertain Takada has become.

_I can't save you without your consent. And we've got a little over twenty-four hours to resolve this, before you start killing people left, right, and center._

_So help me, Kiyomi Takada. This had better work. Something had better work._

"I've also been thinking," Naomi continues, "that it doesn't really matter, does it?"

Takada gapes at her.

"What? _Why_ doesn't it matter?"

"It matters that you were hurt," Naomi says soberly. "It matters what he did. But it…it doesn't matter whether or not we believe in him. The whole point of us, the whole point of following Kira, it was to make the world a better place, wasn't it? A safe world, where good people can lead happy lives."

Kiyomi tilts her head, considering.

"Yes," she says, finally. "Yes, of course."

"Well, we can still do that," Naomi replies. "Whether we save Kira or not, we can save the world. _You_ are Kira, as far as I'm concerned. A good Kira. And you have an incredible army here. We can do anything we want. At any time we want. Defeating Big Jason is just the beginning."

Takada smiles at her, sadly.

"You are a tremendously empowering woman, Naomi," she replies quietly. "But I am no longer sure that I share your vision. Besides, we are opposed by the police on all fronts. We might be able to defeat a criminal like J… like Jason, but we cannot change the world."

Naomi clears her throat loudly, and Takada frowns at her.

"What?"

"Have you forgotten something?" Naomi asks, with a cocky smile. "_I'm _a police officer. We can win over the police. With my history and your brains, it wouldn't take much. Maybe we could use Gree's good looks, too."

Takada pokes her in the ribs.

"Are you implying something, Penber?"

Naomi laughs.

"I quite like it when you call me Penber," she announces, flopping onto Takada's enormous, overstuffed sofa.

Takada sits meticulously down beside her and sighs.

"Even with our considerable talents, Naomi, I very much doubt that we'd be capable of bringing about Kira's perfect world. The man who was Kira was special."

"Special? He _killed_ you. And you weren't a criminal. You loved him, and defended him, and he killed you. If he were anyone else, I'd call him evil."

"I won't hear you say a _word_ against him," Takada says sharply. "Even if you _do_ follow only me, you will show some respect to the man I love."

_You are completely confused, aren't you?_

"Of course, my Lady," Naomi replies, chewing on her lower lip. "I…I don't really understand, but I'll do as you ask."

Naomi feels a momentary rush of ice-cold fear.

_I don't understand_.

That is a loaded statement, now. If she says that three times in a row, the most amazing man she knows will come here and let himself be destroyed.

She must be careful. She has to be so careful. It isn't enough, to just save Takada. She has to save Takada, and L, and Mail, and Raye, and everyone else, as well.

"You ought to be jealous," Takada continues.

"I am not jealous," Naomi replies. "I love you. He killed you. Jealousy does not factor in to my feelings regarding either him or you. Feelings which you just ordered me not to voice, I might add."

"Fine," Takada says, a little bitterly. "My _point_ was this. The man who was Kira is special. There isn't anyone else like him."

"I see," Naomi replies, in a perfectly normal voice.

And then Takada makes tea and they drink tea and banter and hold hands and Naomi doesn't give any indication at all that she's just had the most spectacular, most horrifying idea of her life.

There _is_ someone like Light. Someone like Light, only good. Someone like Light, who doesn't murder people and call it justice, who doesn't betray those closest to him, who cares for people and tries to save the world.

And succeeds more often than probable.

Someone who Takada's never met. Someone Naomi knows well. Someone Takada is probably trying to kill right now.

Takada wants a hero? Naomi can show her a hero.

There would be no way to recommend L to Takada without risking the investigation, though. She can't do it. She'd have to be _really_ sure of Takada's motives, and right now even Takada isn't sure of Takada's motives.

But god, if anyone could save her, L could.

It's just a thought. Naomi files it away, just in case an opportunity presents itself.

Just in case.

* * *

Naomi's talking rubbish again.

She's talking rubbish, talking rubbish. Even Takada isn't listening to her. She just runs her mouth until she runs out of words. She probably loves the sound of her own voice.

_Shut up shut up shut up._

* * *

"Hey. Penber."

It's gotten to the point now where Naomi automatically assumes that anyone who approaches her is going to be Takada, and she's kind of startled to find Gree there, instead.

"Er…yes?"

As far as she knows, Gree hates her. Therefore, she must be after something.

"What do you know of hell?"

Naomi raises her eyebrows.

"That's an unusual and vaguely threatening question," she replies, carefully. "Are you implying something?"

"Not at all," Gree tells her, with an unpleasant, shark-like grin. "Just making conversation. You…intrigue a lot of people here."

"Obviously not you, since this is the first time you've bothered to speak to me," Naomi says, breezily.

Takada isn't here, but she might still be watching them. Naomi cannot afford to seem too rude or insincere. She needs to be a trustworthy, genuine person, after all.

Of course, she could always blame her bad mood on her illness. Useful thing that it is.

"It's true; I generally avoid small-talk," Gree replies, briskly. "I have more important things to focus on, as do we all. I ask now because it is clear that you have come to the attention of Kimiko."

Naomi has seen Grianna's face many times before, of course. She was a famous supermodel even before she died. And she was always stunningly beautiful. But here and now, face-to-face, without makeup or spotlight, her expressions have an almost frightening quality to them. Like she might snap and kill someone at any moment.

"We all have, in our own ways," Naomi replies carefully. There is no way that Gree can possibly know the nature of her relationship with Takada. "Anyway, why do you ask of hell? Do you think Kira controls hell? That would be just like him, stowing away evil, separating the good from the bad."

Grianna shoots her a look of pure, utter venom, and then immediately smiles sweetly.

"I think the concept of hell is a terrible one," she says firmly. "I am positive that it has nothing to do with our Lord. No good person would condone the eternal torment of fellow humans."

"I agree, actually," Naomi says, truthfully, thinking of Takada.

_All right. We do have something in common._

"Yes, I thought you might," Gree tells her.

And that…that doesn't make any sense. Given what Naomi just said about Kira making the world a better place through hell.

So…what? Is Grianna actually able to tell when she's lying? Does she suspect her of not _actually_ being a supporter of Kira?

No. That's ridiculous. If she did, she would have voiced her fears immediately. And Takada, knowing that, could never have trusted Naomi.

So the more likely answer is this: Gree is just crazy.

"Everyone in hell has loved ones who miss them," Gree says sagely. "Therefore, hell automatically punishes innocent people. A good deity like Kira would never do something like that."

_You say it so…blandly, _Naomi notes. _Do you even support Kira at all? Why are you here, if not for Kira? What are you looking for?_

"The movements of Grianna Jones have been somewhat interesting," Rae comments, from above her. "Seems that for the past five years or so, she's drifted from one shady organization to the other. She's been linked to several drug rings, a number of corrupt businesses, a mafia-like gang, and several criminally-oriented families. Still, they've never managed to convict her of anything, but it's quite a fascinating read."

_Huh. I wonder if that's just what happens once all the fame goes to your head. You start thinking that you're untouchable, and seeking danger just for the thrills._

"And there is no doubting that Kira is a benevolent god," Naomi ventures. "I'm sure everything will be fine in the end, as long as we work hard."

Grianna snorts.

"And how much hardship have you encountered in your life, Penber? No doubt you know my story by now. Have you ever experienced anything to compare with that?"

Naomi rummages through her memory, trying to recall which particular background story applied to Grianna Jones.

"It was your first husband, wasn't it?" she says thoughtfully. "He turned your daughter against you, and then killed you."

Grianna lets out a hysterical little laugh.

"You make it sound so _nice_," she says, tremulously. "So clinical and calm. She _hated_ me. She didn't even know me, and she hated me! And he wouldn't even let me visit her."

"Didn't you have partial custody?" Naomi asks politely. This line of conversation is neither useful nor relevant the investigation, but perhaps Grianna's emotions will get the better of her and she'll reveal something important.

"You ever tried fighting a custody battle with a criminal? Because it's damn hard to get them to appear in court."

"You married a criminal?" Naomi asks, although frankly, she's not really surprised.

"Marvin Kenwood was a criminal _and_ a coward," Gree says bitterly. "What other sort of man sets out to kill three and only manages to kill two? He was…he was the _worst_ sort of coward."

_Kenwood? That sounds familiar._

Then again, most criminals sound familiar. After all, she's spent two lifetimes putting them behind bars. She's probably heard of most of them, by now.

"Only two?" she echoes, instead. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oi, girls," Leah says, sticking her head around the corner. "No time for gossip. We've almost bypassed the security on the Mary Cleese file. Naomi, I need your help with codes. Gree, Kimiko wants you back on surveillance."

"Oh," Naomi says. "Yes. Of course."

"Tell her I'm on my way," Gree says coolly, and struts off without preamble. Naomi watches her for a second, slowly shaking her head.

_You don't make any sense, Jones_, she thinks.

And then Leah's words hit home.

_Oh. Security. They've finally gotten through the security_.

Everything is falling into place. Tomorrow is day fifteen. The last day. Whatever happens, it will have to be big. Because she needs a confession out of Takada, one way or another.

Failure is not an option.

* * *

_Marvin Kenwood. Grianna Jones_.

"Wedy's mother," L says softly, staring at his video feed. "Yes, I can…I can see that. Family resemblance."

He's talking to the empty air. Rae isn't here.

He's running out of sweets. He has been consuming excessive quantities of sugar, in a desperate attempt to deduce some sort of logical approach with which to unseat the hell-god.

If Takada does not confess, it will not be Naomi's fault. She has played her part perfectly, and he can expect nothing more from her.

He will be happy, to see her and Raye go off on their own. That is the great reward of his job, after all. Happy endings.

Other people's happy endings. He cannot end. He must go on forever, case after case. How could he ever stop fighting evil and saving lives? He'd be bored, for a start. And alone. And probably poor.

And what will he do, if Takada does not confess? If he goes to Roper's house and sacrifices himself, is that better or worse than waiting to be killed by Light? Would it be playing right into Light's hands, or would Light be outraged that he had been deprived of the chance to humiliate and break L?

Again.

It wouldn't do to just give up, anyway. Even if he is left with no other options, he ought to at least raid Takada's headquarters. If he cannot win with solid evidence, perhaps he can at least either seize the death note or kill Takada.

Of course, if Takada is truly in hell, then she should be impossible to kill. According to Rem, those in hell do not die unless they have been redeemed. But if Takada _is_ redeemed, would that mean that the hell-god would show himself? Or herself?

This isn't fair. All of the resources are on Kira's side, once more. All L has is a Shinigami that hates him, a death note he cannot use, and a team that would be better off without him. He has been deprived of Rem's knowledge, and Matsuda's emotional stability, and Wedy's resourcefulness.

And god, he finally understands Marvin's anger, and Marvin's grief. He finally understands the man who tied him to a building wall and left him to be blown to pieces. Because Wedy _was_ important, and it pains L that he's learned so much about her since she died. She ought to be here, sipping expensive coffee and demanding a pay rise.

And while he's wishing, he might as well wish for Grace, as well.

But what of Wedy's mother? What of Grianna Jones? Her movements make almost no sense at all. L cannot predict her. It seems possible that she simply seeks out crime and …what? Joins in? No, not even that. Judging by what little information L has gleaned about her past, she just seems to…watch. And then move on. So while it's possible she really _is_ a Kira-fanatic, it's also possible that Takada is just the next big attraction in Grianna's strange crime-spectator hobby.

Then, she should be considered as neutral, for completeness' sake. She might take either side, in a pinch.

Takada must admit that she is killing criminals. Rae has already found the location of the death note, but retrieving it alone will not allow them to apprehend her. She _must_ confess, one way or the other.

Given how much she is opening up to Naomi, they have a good chance.

At least…seventy-one percent.

* * *

Jas tugs absently at her locket. She can _feel_ Mello staring at the sky in his world, trying to unravel it.

She could look at him all day. All eternity. And still not be bored.

_Damn you, boy_, she thinks. _Damn you for causing so much trouble._

_Damn you for being beautiful._

_Damn you for landing yourself in hell._

_Damn you for belonging to someone else._

But Mail doesn't know, does he? He might never know. Mello is hers, right now. She ought to be happy with that.

Ought to be.

* * *

_Sometimes, you want to find Matt and strip all his clothes from him._

_Well, really, you want to do that ALL the time._

_But sometimes you want to do it to check for bullet holes. To convince yourself he's still whole and uninjured and alive._

_And that doesn't even make any sense._

* * *

There is no preamble, this time. Takada follows Naomi to her room without excuse or shame. She's not entirely sure what she wants, or how far she is prepared to go, but she wants to be with Naomi. She craves the company of the one person she trusts.

Sleeping here is dangerous. There is no sheaf of death note tucked conveniently under the pillow. Takada has nothing but her watch.

If anyone tried to break in, she'd kill them without question. No one threatens her. No one threatens Naomi.

If Takada beds her, is that going too far? Would Light ever forgive her?

Would Light ever know?

Naomi closes the door, and regards her with visible uncertainty. She's lithe and boyish, compared to Takada. She has a pretty face, but small breasts, no hips, and a subtle-but-present stomach. In a beauty contest, Takada would win, hands down.

She's not attracted to Naomi's body, anyway. She's attracted to the idea of, _oh god_, of actually being with someone who protects her. Of being wrapped up in something that actually makes her feel safe. Of taking something for herself, _finally for herself_, of…

Oh no.

Because it _is_ exciting, the concept of defying Light. Like breathing clean air after living her entire life inside a smoke-filled sauna. The idea of _freedom_, of casting him aside like so many chains, of ceasing this battle after all this time, disregarding L, and just _living_.

And…and it is childish, isn't it, to choose a fulfilling life over saving the world.

Because…she believes Light, doesn't she? He killed her, of course, but he _was_ right. Good. Morally perfect. Everything she believed in. Believes in. Believed in.

That's right. Just for today, the answer can be 'maybe'. Just for today, she can entertain the notion of being free. That she might never be a goddess, might never save the world. That she might take a normal life, and settle down, and be _happy_.

Light and Naomi swirl around and around inside her head. She has to choose one.

She's not. She's not sure Light was right. But if he wasn't, then she never had a chance to be great.

To accept that Light was wrong, she must accept that her life was wasted.

Is Naomi compensation enough?

"I ought to warn you," Naomi says softly, "that I feel mostly terrible right now."

Takada watches her, carefully.

"Is it unbearable?" she asks calmly. "Do you need treatment? Do you need rest? Are you about to be sick?"

"No, no, not yet, and probably not in the next five minutes," Naomi replies, with a tired little smile that Takada wants to take for herself. "You look a little sick yourself."

_Naomi. Light. Naomi._

_Must have. Cannot have. Must believe._

_Not sure._

_Not sure._

_Light_.

Takada reaches out, lightning-fast, and fists one hand inside Naomi's crisp, linen collar.

"Help me," she pleads. "I can't stop thinking. My head. I can't. I…"

Naomi closes in on her, both hands coming up to frame Takada's face, pressing her against the wall, and Takada feels better already.

In her mind, Light's face dims, just a little.

"What do you want?" Naomi asks, her voice earnest and genuine. "Do you want me to be entertaining? Do you want to talk about something else? Do you want…do you want me?"

There's something tremendously inviting about the dubious, kittenish way she offers. Takada pushes her away, just a little, and smiles.

"I'm not sure," she says, with a sudden rush confidence. "But whatever way this works out, you don't sleep in your work shirt, do you?"

Naomi flushes. She must have some inkling of what is to come.

"N-no. No, I don't."

Takada has no idea what the hell she's doing, but she's pretty sure it's going to be good.

"Then," she orders, holding out one hand, "take it off. Give it to me."

* * *

Naomi tugs off her shirt without elegance or grace, and hands it over. It's not a cold night, and her room is well-heated, but she feels exposed and awkward all the same.

_I love you, Raye_, she thinks wistfully. He's probably having a meltdown right now.

She hopes he doesn't snap, and reveal anything to Mail.

Takada takes the shirt and tucks it disinterestedly into her belt, where it hangs like a misshapen scarf.

"It smells bad," Naomi warns, self-consciously adjusting the straps of her bra. "This illness makes me sweat a lot, I'm afraid."

Naomi is pretty sure Takada's not actually attracted to women, because she seems to be sufficiently satisfied once Naomi is shirtless. She certainly doesn't seem to be particularly aroused.

But she does seem more…more alive. Like actually dominating someone is something she's been wanting to do for a long time.

"Well, I'm leaving before the boring stuff starts," Rae informs her, floating over to the far wall. "Don't forget the tap on your foot, Penber."

And, well. An absence of giant critical skeleton _should_ make this slightly easier, in theory.

"You can go about your business, Naomi," Takada says warmly. "I haven't asked anything else of you, yet."

"Oh," Naomi replies. "Er. Okay. I ought to brush my teeth, in that case. Make yourself comfortable, of course."

"Leave the door open," Takada tells her, her eyes fixed on Naomi's right hip.

Naomi obeys, and wonders just how far this is going to go.

* * *

Naomi holds her toothbrush with shaking fingers, and tries to concentrate on the task at hand.

The thing is.

The thing is, if Raye were the sort of man inclined towards an open relationship, Naomi would never have married him. And if he had ever indicated that he wanted the two of them to sleep with a third person – just once – to fulfill a fantasy of his, she would decline.

But for L, she'd sleep with anyone. All he'd have to do is ask.

It's not because she loves him more.

It's just because she loves him differently. And because his reasons are never selfish. Any request that comes out of L's mouth has an obvious ulterior motive; saving the world.

So…she'll sleep with Takada, if she has to.

She's inexperienced, but Takada will be expecting that.

And god, if this saves Takada from Light, if this gives Takada her life back, if this _saves Takada from hell_, then it will be worth any sacrifice Naomi might have to make.

She rinses her mouth and goes back to the bed.

"Now what, my Lady?" she asks tremulously.

Takada is perched on the edge of her mattress, halfway down the bed. Her posture is prim; neck extended, hands folded in her lap, legs crossed daintily.

She smiles and indicates a spot beside her.

"Sit," she instructs. "How are you feeling now?"

"Apprehensive?" Naomi replies, sitting dutifully.

Takada laughs, and the sound is bright and loud. Naomi wonders if all of her other laughs so far have been fake.

Probably. Light was her role model, after all.

_You should have met L, first. He could have saved you. And you would have had your opportunity to save the world. To truly save the world, not just divide it over some arbitrary definition of right and wrong._

"I was referring to your health," Takada says breezily. "You are shaking. Are you going to faint?"

Naomi shakes her head.

"Not planning on it," she manages.

Takada brushes one hand against her waist. Naomi feels electric and a little stupid.

She really wishes she were with Raye right now.

"Goosebumps," Takada notes. "Are you genuinely scared?"

"Are you?" Naomi responds, curiously.

"Of course not. But I still have all my clothes on," Takada informs her, insufferably smug. "Trousers, please."

Naomi rolls her eyes and pushes herself back into a standing position

"You're _so_ romantic," she replies, tugging at her belt buckle.

And apparently, Takada has a _thing_ for sarcasm, because she's suddenly on her feet, too, and then Naomi finds herself bodily _thrown_ back onto the bed.

"I'll shut that damn mouth for you," Takada hisses, and then she's all over Naomi; weight on Naomi's chest, manicured nails against Naomi's ribs, fingers in Naomi's hair.

Mouth hot against Naomi's mouth.

And Naomi….Naomi feels okay.

* * *

tbc


	41. Oversight

notes/warnings

+ uh, sexual themes in this chapter, too.

+ swearing!

* * *

**Oversight**

Raye stares unseeingly at the useless, _useless_ laptop, bile rising in his throat.

_What is she doing what are they doing WHAT ARE THEY DOING?_

Naomi is making tiny, breathless noises. Noises that should be only for him. But she's making them for Takada, and fucking goddamned fucking _L_. And dear god, he can _see_ this, all of this, whatever she's doing, however exposed she's become, L is watching.

_His_ wife. His. L can want and instruct and voyeur all he likes, but he'll never have her.

But even that thought is no fucking comfort at a time like this. Raye doesn't know what they're doing. Naomi might already be having sex with her.

His beautiful wife, sleeping with a serial killer.

She's in so much danger, and Raye can't help her.

And he can't escape, either. He can't plug his ears. He can't kick the door open and vanish into the night and run and run and _run_, because he has to stay here. He _has_ to listen to this, even if it kills him.

He hates Kiyomi Takada. He hates the way she speaks, and the sound of her voice, and the fact that she _honestly believes_ that Naomi might fall for someone like _her_.

He hopes she burns in hell.

"It's not real," Mail murmurs. "She's just acting. This is just for the investigation."

"And she might be killed, _just for the investigation_," Raye spits. "Just…just…just shut up. Shut up! You don't fucking know anything! She's not doing this 'just for the investigation', she's doing this for _him_!"

And somehow, that's even worse. L always takes everything away from him. And he doesn't even fucking _realise…_

Out of nowhere, Mail backhands him across the face. Raye grunts in surprise, momentarily jerked out of his mental cocoon of rage and self-pity. The sharp, sudden pain in his jaw contrasts starkly with the moans and giggles emanating from his headphones.

_This is so fucking surreal._

Every muscle in Raye's body aches to hit Mail back, but the man is built like a rake, and he'd probably just snap in half and die. Raye settles for shoving at him violently.

"You little punk! What were you-"

"You're not even _thinking_," Mail tells him derisively. "You're just fuckin'…look, even _I_ can see she's doing this for herself."

Raye rubs at his face. He'll have a bruise, by tomorrow. Not that it matters.

Everything ends, tomorrow.

"For herself?" he asks, skeptically.

"You are an idiot," Mail tells him. "A fuckin' idiot. Look, she _loves_ this shit. That's what she does. It's not about anyone else. Right now she's doing her job, because that's who she is. And she's _still_ yours."

Raye opens his mouth to respond, hesitates, then closes it again. He…he has nothing to say to that. Nothing.

He didn't expect Mail to actually have _insight_.

For the first time, he wonders what Mail was like, back when he was alive. When he was an actual person. When he was _whole_.

Raye is…Raye is lucky.

Being lucky doesn't make this any easier.

* * *

Sometimes, on his really good days, Mail can reach right into his most precious memories and extract some of Mello's words, Mello's intentions, Mello's influence. Mello could always read people perfectly. He'd know exactly what to say in order to shut Raye up.

And Mail is just reaching, of course. Trying to deduce what his amazing friend would have done, and felt, and thought. He's nothing but a flawed proxy.

But when Raye actually does shut up, Mail feels…just for a moment, he feels satisfied.

* * *

For the past ten minutes, they've been kissing. Loudly, and passionately, and somewhat enjoyably. But without the removal of any more clothes. Without any hint of progression. Takada's obviously not too sure about actually having sex, either.

The endorphin release is working well for Naomi, at any rate. She doesn't feel nauseous or faint, any more. She feels…well, mostly she feels worried. She can't stop thinking about how frightened and desperate and confused Takada is, and how maybe Naomi's actions aren't actually _helping_ her.

And how L could save her. If L were here, right now. If they'd sent L, instead of her. If Takada listened, if Takada _let him_, then L could save her. Might still be able to save her. He can save anyone, Naomi is certain of that. All he ever needs is half a chance.

He's L. He's practically a superhero. And he'll feel much better once this Takada business is over. They will _all_ feel better.

"Wait," Takada says, against her lips, and then she gets up, gets off the bed, and wanders out of Naomi's line of sight.

Naomi spontaneously decides that once this case is closed, she is going to invite her boss into her bed again. She wants to go to sleep between Raye and L. She wants to feel _that safe_.

Takada reappears, and immediately collapses beside Naomi. Her shirt is gone. Her bra is predictably impressive and expensive-looking. Her face is a little paler than usual.

"I've never…I've never done this with anyone before," she admits, sounding uncharacteristically vulnerable. Lost.

Takada definitely doesn't sound like a devout Kira-worshipper now. And that's good. Naomi strokes Takada's back absently, and smiles warmly.

Because she's pretty certain that there's still good left in Kiyomi Takada.

Ninety-nine percent certain.

* * *

Jas is bending a few rules here, but it's a necessary evil. Besides, bending is not the same as breaking.

Naomi Penber is clever and careful, but there is something Kiyomi Takada needs to know. Because when she was alive, there was never anyone _other_ than Light. Her choice was either to follow Light, or to follow no-one at all.

So, Jas needs to make Naomi mention L. It's the only way.

And this is such a precise, complicated task. All of Jas' energy and focus must be directed at Naomi. She must speak of L objectively, preserve her own safety and yet still leave Kiyomi with a substantial amount of hope.

'_I refuse to believe Kira is the only good person in the world. Perhaps the police will not help us, but there are other people out there. Clergymen, and scientists, and teachers, and god knows what else. Hell, there are private detectives who want to help make a better world. What about the one called L? I've heard he's supposed to be a good man_. _Do you know anything about him?_'

That is what Naomi needs to say, exactly. Of course, Naomi would never mention L of her own volition, no matter how much she thinks about it. She's too hell-bent on protecting her beloved boss. But that's okay. Jas has power over the human mind. A little bit of pressure, applied _just_ so, and Naomi will speak out.

This is delicate. This is _so_ delicate. There is no room for any mistakes.

* * *

L is sucking sloppily on his left thumb, his tongue leaving little trails of saliva in its wake. And it's nothing, really, ha ha, of course not. He's pathetic, not burning-hot, and…

Well. It wouldn't hurt to test him out. Ask a few questions. After all, it's important to know if he has any sexual or romantic weaknesses.

Yes. That would be good.

* * *

L regards his monitor with mild interest. All he really cares about is the positioning of Naomi's foot. After all, she is still carrying a tap there. Any sexual activity is of no consequence to the mission, as long as Takada does not uncover any unexpected electronics.

Rae is perched in the passenger's seat. It has yet to actually bother to greet him.

"You're a really sad little man, do you know that?"

_Ah. There it is._

"You know, I remember when you used to say 'hello' before you started criticising me," L says ruefully. "Those were good days."

"I remember when you cried at Matsuda's funeral," Rae snaps. "That was a good day."

L frowns at his Shinigami.

"All right. Your venom is bordering on ridiculous. What is it?"

"_You_ are the one who's ridiculous," Rae huffs. "Or maybe 'broken' would be a better word."

"Because I won't use the death note?" L guesses.

"No, because there are two _barely dressed women making out on your screen_, and you don't even _feel anything_, do you?"

L lifts his head, disconcerted and wounded all at once. He has no idea what Rae wants him to say.

"This is an undercover mission, not a pornographic movie," he says carefully. "Why would I feel anything? Other than concern, of course."

"Forget it. I have a new theory, by the way. I don't think you even _have_ genitals."

The strange wounded-disconcerted feeling subsides to make way for a whole lot of awkward and uncomfortable.

"You have seen me naked," L points out.

"They're made of plastic, then."

L rolls his eyes.

"I don't even understand where this is going. Do you _want_ me to be attracted to my happily-married employee? Or do you just think that would suit your perception of me, because it would be an inherently evil attraction to pursue?"

"That's not the point," Rae tells him, angrily. "The point is that you're so emotionally defunct that you've actually succeeded in shutting down your own physiological responses. You're a broken human."

"So now I'm dysfunctional, _and_ evil," L says sadly. "I understand."

"No you don't," Rae responds, and there's an odd little tremor in its voice. "You don't even…look, in the entirety of your life, have you _ever_ been attracted to anyone?"

L chokes on his offhand _'no, actually'_, and he isn't sure why.

"I…I'm not sure?"

That is, apparently, the wrong answer. His Shinigami lunges at him, knocking him out of his crouch and sending him sprawling against the door.

"You're not allowed to hurt me," L mutters, and Rae _grabs_ him, pinning his right hand to the ceiling, long fingers wrapping around his left thigh, preventing him from bringing his legs together.

Too high up. Rae doesn't know what it's doing.

L raises his head and sees that Rae's eyes are the colour of rust. Something warm, fluttery, and unbidden curls in the pit of his belly.

Rae _always_ knows what it's doing.

And its face is barely a few inches away from his own.

L feels really awkward, now. Awkward, and tense, and kind of like if he just stays still, maybe something amazing will happen and geeze, how long has it been since he last exhaled?

"You're a freak," Rae enunciates.

L reaches out, curling the palm of his free hand around one of Rae's ribs.

"You, though," he breathes, because it's stupid and it's terrible and it's actually _true_. "I…I like _you_."

Light's probably going to kill him soon, anyway. He might as well tell the truth.

And it's worth it all – worth every _second_ of impending horrible lifelong repercussions – when he realises that Rae's eyes have turned completely brown.

* * *

The name floating over L's head flickers and disappears. But that's nothing to panic about. It will be easy enough to restore. In a minute.

_You._

What Takada's doing is crazy and wrong. If she were restricting herself to murdering convicted criminals, it would be fine.

_You are_.

Would probably be fine. Except, perhaps not. Not really. She was never chosen. Only gods are allowed to judge people. She's just a silly little girl, with a weapon that's too powerful for her to understand. She's no better than those she kills.

But L.

_You just said_.

The world shifts, ever so slightly. It seems to move in time with L's ragged, shallow breathing. He didn't flinch. He reached out and touched.

_You like me_.

It's such a simple, implausible, incredible concept. He's…he's…this is _easy_. L is never neutral. If he's not a stumbling stone, then he's an ally.

_You like me!_

It's the best sort of revelation, like winning a gold medal halfway through the race. L is a prize. And although his affections can probably be cultivated and bought, this is so much better. _So_ much better.

_You like me. And you chose me, all on your own_.

L's pupil is huge, and there's colour in his cheeks.

_I could give you everything_._ I could take you for myself_.

Yes. That would be enough. The benevolent detective. The perfect trophy. An undeniable testimony of having lived a perfectly good life.

_And if you like me, then we're equal. I…I don't even have to worry. You've proven you're no longer capable of emotionally abusing those you care about. You won't let yourself manipulate me._

_I'm safe._

L's fingers flex, brushing up against nerve endings that aren't actually there. It feels good, jittery and spectacular. It feels like winning. Rae strokes its thumb along the inseam of L's jeans, and the man makes a tiny, strangled noise.

_I've._

_I've never felt like this before._

_Why are you so electric?_

_Is this how it's…supposed to be?_

The king can have pets. The king can have courtesans.

_And you need me, don't you? You need me to protect you from everything. _

_This is good. This is perfect. You're better than anyone else I've had. I have to have you._

"I'm not broken," L pants. "Don't let him kill me."

"I won't."

_You like me_.

Maybe, in time, he'll even see reason about Kira.

* * *

_It's the middle of the night, and you stagger to the kitchen for some water._

_You fell asleep while eating chocolate – again – and your mouth feels fuzzy and disgusting. And yet, you're still too lazy to be bothered to actually brush your teeth. _

_You can practically hear Near criticising you from across town. And he'd still be up at this ungodly hour, too, because he's a freak who never sleeps._

_You've always needed eight or nine hours of sleep per night. Just one more reason why you're weak, and inferior. _

_You're also fat, and ugly, and god, you wish you were anywhere but here. Any other reality, any other existence. Ideally, you'd like to be transported to one of Matt's favourite Western-style video games. With guns, and street fights, and clear-cut good versus evil. Where everyone is hot – even you – and you get to have lots of anonymous sex with faceless strangers, and no-one ever realizes that you're in love with your married, definitely-not-even-slightly-interested best friend._

_You grab the nearest mug, and scull whatever liquid it holds. Knowing Dwayne, it'll probably be some sort of alcohol. And hey, if it's poison, then at least you won't have to deal with this shit any more._

_But, no. It's water. Water and…water and moth. Crap. You choke and hunch over the sink, overweight and pathetic and struggling for breath._

_You remember what Near used to tell you._

'_You're just stupid, that's all. You might be psychotic, but that not your main problem. Mostly, you're stupid.'_

_And god, you'd kill yourself, but you can't. You can't leave Matt. You can't take this any more, but you can't leave Matt. So you put up with it, and you try to get through every day as best you can, and you prod at the seams that you imagine in the sky, as if they might reveal all the answers in the world. _

_It's all in your head. You're just crazy. Crazy and dumb. You drop the mug on the floor and head back towards your bed. You cast a glance at the microwave as you pass, just to remind yourself how huge and wide you've-_

_Your reflection is wrong._

_Your…your reflection is wrong!_

"_What the fuck is this?" you demand, because the reflection is tiny, slim waist and jutting hips, and yet it turns and backs away when you do. _

_Like it's actually you._

_You duck your head, and the face that looks back is…is maybe your cousin's, or something. Because those look like your eyes, but the face is perfect, scar-less and clean. And that's the hair you've always wanted, sleek and golden, all the way down to your…to his chin._

_It's…it's you. It's what you want to be. It's alternate reality you. It's…it's…it's…_

_You look at the ceiling, and THERE ARE FUCKING STARS ON THE CEILING. _

_Stars. That twinkle. The ceiling is transparent, and you're looking at the…_

_And then the revelation hits you, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what the microwave says, or what is happening to the house, because._

_Because Matt is dead. _

_You remember, now. _

_He died. He was killed. You got him killed._

_The words form unbidden on your lips. A protest; a eulogy._

"_Dear heart. God, no. No, no, no, no! NO!"_

_Around you, the whole world is falling apart. _

_Matt is dead._

* * *

Jas jerks, startled.

Keehl.

Keehl is rattling his chains, unraveling his own hell, destroying everything.

He's trying to escape. He's trying to get away from _her_.

No. No!

_Good or bad, you're mine right now._

_I own you._

_I own you!_

And Jas goes to him, reaches out, lashes out.

Diverts her attention away from Naomi Penber, just for a second.

* * *

"I'm…I'm not actually sure I can do this," Takada confesses, rolling off of Naomi and landing on her back on the mattress. "It's…he's. He's such a big part of my life, Naomi."

"Whatever you want, my Lady," Naomi replies, but she sounds a little put out.

And that ought to make Takada happy, but it doesn't.

"I _wish _this was about what _I _wanted," Takada says bitterly, flinging her arms up over her head. "It's never been about what I wanted."

"It's your life," Naomi murmurs, but she sits up, all the same. "So, are we done? Should I put my clothes back on?"

Takada grips her shoulder and pulls her back down.

"Stay with me," she says, tremulously. "I…I set out to do this."

Naomi frowns.

"But I thought you just said you didn't want to-"

"Of _course_ I want to!" Takada yells. "Of course! But this isn't about me. He's everywhere, Penber. He's under my eyelids when I sleep. I can't escape him."

Naomi's fingers curl around her hand, confident and warm.

"You could ignore him, if you wanted to," Naomi says softly. "I refuse to believe you don't have a choice."

"He is the only way I can save the world," Takada says simply. "Tell me, what kind of a choice is that, to make?"

And actually saying the words out loud makes them a thousand times more awful and real than they sounded in the confines of her own head.

She really _doesn't_ get to choose. There is being a good person, and there is _not_ being a good person.

But Naomi…Naomi gives her this weird, calculating sort of look. And her eyes are wide, and strangely glazed, and she's really pretty.

Really, really pretty.

"I refuse to believe Kira is the only good person in the world," Naomi tells her, slowly. "Perhaps…perhaps the police will not help us, but there are other people out there. Clergymen, and scientists, and teachers, and god knows what else. Hell, there are private detectives who want to help make a better world. I've…I've met one of them. I've…I've worked for L."

Takada's heart stills in her chest.

_You've what? You've what? You've WHAT?_

* * *

Naomi feels her lips form the words, hears her own vocal chords betray her, betray _everything_, but there is nothing that she can do.

She is powerless in her own body.

And that can only mean one thing.

Kira.

Kira is back.

Kira has her.

_Here comes the noose_.

And then, just as suddenly, Naomi can move again. And think, and breathe, and talk. And she sees the confusion, and suspicion, and anger in Takada's eyes.

And then she understands. Kira has still killed her. He's just elected to do it very, very slowly. And via Takada.

If she ever sees him again, she's going to stab his fucking eyes out.

* * *

Raye stares at the computer in utter horror.

"What the fuck did you say?" he whispers, terrified.

Takada…Takada will annihilate her. Takada will tear her apart.

Naomi would never decide to do something like this on her own. This…this is _L's fucking doing. _

He's ordered her to _risk her goddamned life_, and he's done it on the sly.

Raye's mind races frantically. No. This can't be. No. L wouldn't do that. This isn't happening. Naomi cannot be killed.

Naomi _cannot_ be killed.

Raye pulls his gun into his lap, rests one hand on the handle of the door, and waits.

If there is even the slightest sign of trouble, he is goddamned going in there.

* * *

L shoves Rae away, violently, an automatic reaction. He reaches for his computer, as if that's going to do any good at all.

"What is she doing?" he whispers, his heart sinking horribly. "Why would…why would she say that?"

"She'll be killed," Rae says, sounding as shocked as L feels. "Naomi's not usually stupid. What the fuck is she trying to achieve?"

"It's the hell-god," L tells it. "It must be. He's controlling her."

"So, what are you going to do?" Rae asks.

L stares forlornly at his own hands. This…this is big. This is huge. He cannot fight influence, and he cannot fight mind control.

And he cannot _find_ the hell-god.

_Please don't die, Naomi Penber_.

"There is nothing I can do," he says, heavily.

Takada hasn't spoken yet. Takada hasn't said a word.

_Please don't kill her._

"Did you do this?" Raye's voice crackles over the intercom. "L? Is this your doing?"

_We'd never get there in time. We'd never get there in time, and we cannot fight the hell-god. Not yet._

"Do you believe me, now?" L asks quietly. "Do you believe me that the god of hell is controlling our situation."

"Not really, no," Rae admits.

"Get back there," L grits. "Go and be with Naomi. Do anything you can to protect her, please."

"Got it," Rae replies, and releases its hold on his wrist. L hadn't realised it was still hanging on in the first place.

Rae turns, knocks its elbow against the door, and swears. And L doesn't have _time_ for this, he doesn't have time for anything. His world is being destroyed, right before his eyes, and he'll be damned if he's going to just lay down and die. Not again. Not _this_ time.

"Get your red eyes back," L orders. "_Now_!"

* * *

It's easy enough to get the eyes back.

_I barely touched you._

It's easy enough to hate L.

_And you were so_…

Really, it is.

_What the fuck did we almost do_?

Everything is fine.

* * *

"Oh no," Jas breathes, horrified. "Oh…oh _god_. What have I _done_?"

She's influenced Naomi too hard, the wrong way. A moment of distraction; a whole cascade of consequences.

Jas analyses and re-analyses the situation, over and over, but there's nothing she can do. She can't take back the words, and she cannot influence Kiyomi Takada, or she risks unbalancing the test.

There is a life hanging in Kiyomi's hands, now. A life that is not supposed to be lost. Jas sort of wants to have a meltdown.

This…this is the most terrible thing she's ever done.

* * *

Takada does not speak for a full two minutes, seething and confused and gobsmacked, unable to decide on what she wants to say.

_You aren't trustworthy!_

_Did he send you here?_

_Do you have contact with L? Can you track him down for me? Could you arrange a meeting?_

_Who is he? What sort of man is he?_

_Can he save me?_

She can't think. She can't process all of this right now. She _cares_ for Naomi, and this…this is too much.

"You failed to mention that during your interview process," she says, finally.

"I honestly didn't think it was relevant," Naomi tells her, and she sounds as stressed as Takada feels. "I thought you would be more interested in my police connections."

_No, you stupid girl! He's the one I'm looking for!_

_Is he special to you? IS HE SPECIAL TO YOU? _

Maybe saving Light will become a happy coincidence. Maybe Takada needs to kill L anyway. Why would Naomi bring him up now, if she didn't admire him?

Because Takada needs saving?

Impossible. L is the enemy. Always the enemy.

"You know that L opposed Kira, surely," Takada says, as calmly as she can manage. "That was made quite public in the first world."

"I know. That's why I didn't bring it up until now," Naomi replies tersely. "I worked with L long before Kira began. When I realised he was against Kira, I presumed he must have been evil. But now, after what you've said, I've been wondering if maybe L could have saved you from what…from what Kira did."

"Are you really saying that I ought to side with someone I hate?" Takada demands. "Did L _send_ you here, Naomi?"

"_No_!" Naomi says, passionately. "But…Kira killed you. I cannot forgive him for that. I… I do confess that my perception of the world has shifted considerably since I learned that. If Kira had been stopped, you might never have been killed. And you might never have had to suffer so at the hands of Big Jason. I cannot overlook all of that, my Lady. Please, I'm doing this because I care for you."

_I don't even know what to believe any more._

_I want to believe you._

_I wanted to believe Light, too._

_Dear god, I did, didn't I?_ _He told me I could be a goddess, and I wanted to believe that._

_No. That's not how it was. He was good. He was GOOD!_

"No one can save me," Takada says firmly, getting to her feet. "This conversation is over. I…I need to be alone, right now."

"I understand," Naomi tells her gently, drawing her knees up to her chin. She's still adorable.

_She has connections to L_.

That means something. Something huge. That means…

"You thought I could save you, Kimiko," Naomi whispers.

That means that Takada can either use Naomi to kill L, or use her to join him.

Dear god. She has to choose.

_She has to choose_.

* * *

_You wake up in the middle of the kitchen floor. It's still dark. The glowing numbers on your cheap-ass watch tell you that it's two thirty-one in the morning._

_You vaguely remember getting up for a drink of water. You must have passed out in the middle of it._

_How typically pathetic, as Near might say. And who the fuck cares what Near thinks, anyway?_

_Everyone does. That's the problem. Everyone does. Even you._

_You catch a glimpse of your reflection in the microwave, and you swear you've gained weight since dinner last night. You really are getting disgusting._

_You vaguely remember having a really strange dream, where there was some skinny, model-looking guy in the mirror – or something – and somehow that meant Matt was dead._

_You can barely remember it, though. And it was only a dream._

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you for reading!

+ I apologise that this chapter is both late and short, and also that I forgot an a/n in the last chapter.

+ I also need to warn that chapters may not be posted on a weekly basis for the next few chapters. I apologise for this too, but I always seem to struggle writing climaxes and conflicts, and I need to take time to make sure that things are making sense.

+ thank you again!


	42. Indecision

notes/warnings

+ swearing. I don't think I've ever written so many f-words in one place.

* * *

**Indecision**

Naomi sits on the edge of her bed, back straight, hands fisted in the quilt.

Waiting.

Eventually, Rae arrives. The clock tells her that barely five minutes have passed, but she feels like she's been sitting there - in shocked silence - for hours.

"You…you might as well sleep," Rae tells her bluntly. "I'll stay with Takada, and find out what she plans to do. I will wake… you if anything eventuates."

Even their Shinigami seems to be distracted and confused.

_Can Kira control the gods of death? Has he become that powerful?_

No. Probably not. Hopefully not.

Naomi doesn't nod, or give any response at all. One wrong move could end her. Instead, she turns and finally gets into bed. Her head aches, and she's so fucking tired and lonely that she's even grateful for _Rae's_ company.

At least if anything happens to her, someone will know. Her body will not be 'never found'. Kira cannot have that ultimate victory.

Not again.

She sleeps and dreams of Light Yagami's murderous, mocking smile.

She wonders whether L ever dreams of it. Whether L ever _stops_ dreaming of it.

* * *

_I cannot choose L._

_L is the enemy._

_I cannot choose L._

_I cannot choose Naomi._

Kiyomi Takada stares at her ceiling. It is smooth, white, and dusty in the corners. It offers no answers at all.

_Light is my saviour._

_Light asks too much of people._

_He asks too much, and he NEVER…_

_He never._

If Light really was just an egotistical boy with a phenomenal weapon, then L must be the hero. That's one way of looking at it.

But she _loves_ Light, doesn't she? Even through all of this, even with Naomi, even after Jason, even after _everything_, she loves Light. And her plan, all along, was to be his partner. To become a goddess. To save the world.

She's no idiot. She knows what she's doing.

She'll face Big Jason again, for Light, because.

Because.

Takada scrubs at her face with both hands. She's so _tired_. And Jason terrifies her. And god, she wants to feel safe and warm again, the way she did when she was with Naomi.

She wants to be a goddess. She wants, she wants, she wants.

People say it was L who finally defeated Light. Even though Light killed him four years prior to Light's own end, it was still L. Or people who were raised by him, to be like him. Or something.

Sometimes, she wishes she'd never met Light.

Sometimes, she wishes she'd met someone else, first. Someone who was enough like him to move her, without making the same horrible demands.

Someone like Naomi, maybe. Someone like L.

If she chooses Light, then she ought to search Naomi for taps. No, even better, she ought to pretend to be interested long enough to find out L's location. That will be difficult, she knows, because she's placed a proverbial price on his head. But then again, probably doesn't know who she is, specifically.

Unless…unless Naomi _is_ working for him. In which case, he knows who she is. And if that's the case, then…

God, she's so close to him. She has a direct link. If L came here to stop her, then L came here to defeat Light, surely, surely, surely. He must know the link between her and the real, original Kira. She has to presume L knows everything.

Does he know everything? Does he know how frightened she is? Naomi said he wanted to make a better world, and yet he neither kills nor judges.

Isn't that what she wanted Light to be?

No. Gods have to judge. Gods must judge.

Even as Kira, she cannot heal the sick. She cannot save people like Naomi. She and Light, together, cannot reach out to the innocent, other than to offer them protection from the guilty.

Then…were they ever truly gods?

Is this all a trap? Getting her to love Naomi, so they can bring her down?

But then why mention L at all? That's practically suicide. No, L can't intend to trap her, if he's behind all of this.

Then…

Then…

Then if L has ordered Naomi to come here, then he is offering her an opportunity to save herself. To escape. To be _human_, and ordinary, and sleep at night.

And oh god. Oh god. She does. She wants that. She wants a break. She wants to be rid of Big Jason, and constant murdering, and _all_ this crap.

Yes.

She wants L to save her.

Maybe.

* * *

_You. Back there, you were just trying to…_

_Manipulate me. _

_Yeah, that's it!_

"Oh god," Takada murmurs, clutching her pillow. "Oh god, I don't even know what to do."

She's in the throes of indecision. She's certainly not about to do anything drastic right this very second, and therefore, she is only a secondary problem.

The illegible writing over her head appears and disappears, over and over, like a pedestrian traffic light, like the most fucking annoying thing in the world.

This is stupid. This is impossible. This is – for the first time _ever_ – this is too much of a challenge. A _pointless_ challenge.

_When I am king, it won't matter what I feel. As long as I don't try to save any humans from death, I can have whoever I want. This is just a stepping-stone. A test for the new king. To prove that I am what I know am._

_Special. Perfect._

_I'm the one who can save the world. Soon._

The test may not even be a necessary one. The whole business of making L use the death note might be solely contrived to amuse the king.

_Stupid fucking Shinigami._

"I always used to think Kira was watching over me," Kiyomi confesses to the back of her own hand. She sounds distant, like she might finally be drowsing. "Is L watching over me? Is that it?"

Focus, focus, focus. Right now, L is the enemy. Being debilitated in this situation is unacceptable.

_Did you really think you could break me, L? Look at you. You couldn't make anyone fall in love with you. Look at Naomi, and Matsuda. They've both thrown themselves at you in the past, and you still couldn't make anything work._

_There's something innately wrong with you_.

Ryuk floats past, like a giant, irritating balloon, waving and mouthing '_hiiiii Raaaae'_.

_When I am king, I am going to have you executed_.

"Say, did Takada mention she's started storing apples at the other end of the building? I think she thought that would stop you getting at them."

Ryuk beams, and promptly disappears, and thank fuck for that.

_You're not even physically ugly. Your problem is all on the inside. You are broken, and you know it. An evil genius with no genius to speak of._

_No redeeming features._

But he was so soft to the touch. And it's weird, it should be weird, but he's always been part of the spoils of victory, one way or another. Dead or alive. He's an absolute in the universe.

And it's not as if he'll ever know the truth.

_Fuck_.

_L fucking evil fucking ugly bad fucking fucking monster fucking WORTHLESS!_

The writing over Takada's head appears for barely a second before dissolving once more.

This is really fucking hard.

* * *

"You've…L mentioned that you did really well last night, covering up that slip of the tongue. So…good job, I guess."

It is testimony to how badly things have gone, that Rae sounds shaken, even now, hours after the fact. Rae shouldn't care at all. _It_ won't be affected, whatever the outcome of this mission.

Unless it loses L. It might care about that.

_L must be wondering what the hell happened_, Naomi thinks. _He might be worried sick. _

But still. He thinks she did well. That matters. That _always _matters. Especially now. This might be her last chance to hear his words of praise, even secondhand.

She's lucky to have Rae around, really. A single, rudimentary link to her boss after she's been deprived of all other forms of contact.

Of course, she knows that she couldn't get a message back to the others even if she wanted to. But it's not as if they can save her, anyway. If her name has already been written, then it's only a matter of time.

She didn't choose to say those things. Someone else chose for her.

Kira is back.

"L also said to tell you that we're going to get you out of here, okay? And Takada's been talking to herself all night. She only fell asleep five minutes ago. And I'm not even sure she's capable of making a decision. Oh, and L…L's decided that you should keep the taps on you."

Of course. Any evidence is vital, now.

Best case scenario, her death delivers them Takada and the notebook and nobody else gets killed.

No. Best case scenario, Takada is saved. Rescuing a vulnerable woman and spitting in Light's eye all at once. That would make any death worthwhile.

Rae moves jerkily around the room. Its eyes are the colour of mud, instead of their usual vivid red.

_Great. Even the god of death has weird shit going on. _

And…there's something else. Something has changed in the way Rae says L's name. Naomi doesn't even want to think about what that means. Or why it couldn't manage to tell her these instructions last night, when it first got back from seeing L.

_Something's happened to you, too._

Not that it matters now.

She's been sick for _so_ long. Weeks and weeks.

_Have I been in your clutches all this time, Kira? _

_Was there never any hope for escape?_

She wants to see her husband again. She wants the company of people she can trust. _Humans_ she can trust. She wants to be able to eat _food_ again, without feeling nauseated and horrible. She wants to be well.

But she's strong. She's always been strong. And she's not about to crumble now.

* * *

"I did not instruct her to do that, Raye," L says quietly. "Please believe me."

Four years ago, L would never have begged _anyone_ to believe him. He never cared what anyone thought.

Caring tears people apart. Mail ought to know that.

"Then where the _fuck_ did it come from?" Raye demands, his voice loud and utterly furious. "She wouldn't do it on her own. She's not fucking _stupid_!"

"She _is_ fucking _ill,_" Mail points out. "Vomiting, nausea. Sometimes dehydration can make people unable to think straight. Even clever people."

Raye stares at him, his expression melting from utter dislike to unmitigated terror.

"Do you think she's sick in the head?" he says fearfully. "Jesus…do you. God. I don't even know what to make of this."

"Nor do I," L tells him gently. "But I promise you this. If I have to sacrifice my life to get her back, then…I will still get her back."

"Then _do it_," Raye roars. "Go the Roper's fucking house. _Save_ her!"

Mail seizes Raye's gun, and points it at him.

"Take that back," he orders, coldly. "Take that fuckin' back _now_!"

Raye stares blankly at the muzzle of the gun, then seems to crumple against his chair, shaking like a child.

"Just save her," he mutters. "Please. I just want to get her back at the end of all this."

"If we have no better options, I will go to Roper's house," L says delicately. "I prom-"

"_Don't promise_," Mail yells. "What they want is fuckin' _you_. Grow a fucking brain, both of you. I am _not_ the responsible fucking adult here, and I shouldn't have to say this."

Raye doesn't respond.

"Mail," L says, slowly. "Mail, you know what risks we take. She has a family. I have to-"

"No," Mail barks. "No. Don't you let him fucking win. Don't you _dare_ let Kira fucking win."

There is an endless pause at the other end of the line.

"I will…do the best I can," L says, voice resigned and quiet.

"So you fuckin' should."

* * *

Takada wakes after barely an hour, and immediately starts tossing and turning and muttering to herself.

"Show me," she implores her ceiling. "Show me which path I am meant to take."

_This is good_.

She's not sure. And if she chooses L, surrenders herself to L, then it will be easy to arrest her like the filthy criminal she is.

L, who is evil. L, who still stands against Kira. Even _now_. And if he stands against Kira, then he must stand _for_ the criminals.

Yes. And there it is. Unwavering, clear writing, above Takada's head. No pretending needed. L is still a bad person. Desirable, but bad. To change him will be a privilege, but that doesn't matter right now.

L might try to save Takada, but she doesn't deserve even that. She doesn't deserve _anything._

_She didn't deserve to die._

_Shut up!_

She's a monster. Ordinary human beings can't handle the power of the death note.

She never should have had it in the first place.

_Oh_.

* * *

_If Light is the knight in shining armour, then L is the dragon._

_If Light is the dragon, then…_

Takada runs her index finger up and down the spine of the death note. It is such a small object. It weighs barely anything at all. And yet, it is like carrying around an anchor. It weighs her down and eats away her choices.

Light is the only man she's ever respected. L might be pathetic. He might be weak. He might be morally ambiguous. He might be _boring_.

He might want to save her.

If Naomi is a spy for L, then L is watching over her. And he's offering her…he's offering her a chance.

To leave. To renounce this awful place, and the duty of the death note. To walk away from everything and be _ordinary_.

To be safe. To have Naomi, even. Maybe.

"But there's no guarantee," she murmurs out loud.

And no, no, that won't do. If L is not involved with this case at all, then Takada has no choice. She might be able to use Naomi to kill him, but she has no way of convincing him to save her.

And the loss of that possible choice is suddenly terrifying. A solid stone door, slammed in her face. Nothing but Light and Kira and work and work and work and death and Jason, for all eternity.

"I don't want it!" she cries, shoving at her pillow. "I don't!"

It doesn't matter if she speaks. There is no one to hear her. And she's been so lonely, all this time.

It doesn't matter what sort of man L is. It doesn't even matter if she gets to keep Naomi. All that matters, right now, is that she _get out of here_.

And L…L might not even be involved.

She has to know. She has to _know_.

"If she's working for L," Takada tells the notebook, softly. "If L is involved, then I want…I want him to save me. I'd do anything for that."

The words feel strange and wrong on her tongue, but that doesn't matter. The walls are closing in, and she needs to get _away_ from here.

Right now, all she wants is to _escape_.

* * *

_L_. _The famous detective. That's…interesting._

There's no doubt Kimiko has a killer notebook – a 'death note', as the skeleton woman used to call it – but mentioning L? And having drastic, drastic changes of heart?

That's progress.

Not long now. Not if Grianna's theory is correct.

"Oy!" Leah chastises. "That's Kimiko's door. You aren't supposed to be listening at it, Jones."

Leah is a fool. They all are. What would they think, if they knew their precious beloved leader was about to jump ship?

Grianna smiles warmly. She has guns hidden in places even Kimiko wouldn't think to check.

Kimiko's real name is Kiyomi Takada. She's supposed to be in hell. She is in hell, of course. Sooner or later…

Sooner, now. It will be soon.

The skeleton woman was so useful. She told Grianna so many things, even though Grianna discarded the notebook as soon as she realized she couldn't use it to save her family.

"_Since you are filled with sorrow, I will give you a fair chance. Those who are in hell who appear in the real world…are almost always here to be tested. Perhaps you can find what you seek, but I would not recommend it."_

That information, coupled with the Shinigami eyes…that is all she needs.

Soon.

"Come with me, Leah," Grianna instructs, sweetly. "I need you to run me through the finer points of encryption again."

Better that no one is around to witness whatever Kimiko is about to do. Better not to hinder this progression.

Soon, he will come.

_I will get you back, sweetheart._

* * *

Naomi staggers to the bathroom, and manages to remain upright long enough to take a quick shower.

Takada hasn't come by. No one has come by. No one is checking on her, no-one has installed more cameras in her room, no one has searched her. She can't decide whether she ought to go outside, just in case the others have all decided to leave so they can bomb the building.

Because…the worst thing is, she doesn't know _how_ Kira will kill her. The death note can narrate practically anything, according to what she's heard. If she can physically and physiologically do something, then Kira can make her do it. At any time. In any place.

If Kira makes her call for L, will Rae stop L from coming?

_Can_ Rae stop L from coming?

"Brace yourself," Rae announces, appearing beside her suddenly. "Takada is coming. And…she's probably going to ask you if you are working for L."

Naomi stares at the Shinigami with wide eyes.

_And? What am I supposed to do?_

"We don't have time for L to have input," Rae tells her. "She's broken. She wants L to save her. You need to tell her the truth."

_That I work for L?_

Rae is right. That should work. Takada will show her true colours, one way or the other. Naomi's life will be on the line, but her life is forfeit, anyway. And L will still be safe. And Takada might be saved.

Yes. It is a good plan. Raye wouldn't like it, but it _is_ a good plan. Sacrifices must be made. And Naomi is the best possible sacrifice.

If she dies, she dies for her family.

Takada kicks the door in, in lieu of knocking. Naomi flinches automatically.

"I need to talk to you," Takada demands. "_Now_!"

"Of…of course," Naomi stammers, gesturing in the general direction of the sofa with shaking hands. "Would you like to take a seat, or-"

"Do you work for him, Naomi Penber?" Takada barks. "Tell me the truth. Are you working for L, right now? Are you here because of him?"

Naomi hesitates. If she says 'yes', then she will be admitting that she lied yesterday. That could end badly.

And no matter what she says, she's improvising. L won't be able to have any input. Right now, he's in his utility vehicle, chin on one knee, watching and listening and hoping like hell she makes the right decision.

Whatever the right decision is.

"You're _taking too long_," Takada says hysterically, slamming her hand against the wall. "Answer me, goddamnit. _Answer me_!"

"I was sent here to stop you," Naomi says tremulously. And for all of Takada's screeching and wailing, her own voice sounds like the loudest thing in the room. "I was never a Kira supporter. I followed L's philosophy. I came here to stop faux Kira, and I found you."

"I don't _care_ about you!" Takada spits. "You are weak. You can't stop Kira, and you can't stop Jason. You can barely stand upright, _look_ at you."

"I didn't intend to fall in love with you, but I did," Naomi lies.

"You haven't answered the _question_!" Takada howls, grabbing her by the arms and slamming her against the wall.

"_Listen_ to me, I'm getting there," Naomi snaps. "I came here seeking a monster, and instead I found a frightened, abused woman who doesn't deserve the crap she's taken, in this life or the first. I want to save you, Kimiko. I want you and I to walk out of here together."

"Did L send you here?" Takada asks, barely a whisper. "Does _he_ want to save me?"

"L is in a lot of places," Naomi says, and this is it. This is everything. This is what they do, take risks and hope to god they aren't wrong. "He sent me here. And he wants to save you."

Takada releases her abruptly. And then, without ceremony, she drops to the floor and stares up at Naomi, pale and exhausted and childlike.

Takada slowly fists one hand in the hem of Naomi's trousers.

_You are so young, still_, Naomi thinks, sympathetically.

_Hasn't anyone ever taken care of you?_

"Can he…can he hear me? Right now, can he hear me?"

Naomi raises an eyebrow in surprise. And she's not supposed to voluntarily reveal the taps, but her fate is already sealed, one way or the other.

"Yes."

Takada exhales hard, shuddering, and presses her head to Naomi's leg.

"I want you to save me," she whispers, her voice barely audible. "L. I want you to save me."

Naomi freezes.

_Oh._

_Oh!_

She wants L to save her. That means. That means…

That means they've won.

And oh god, this is awesome. This is like winning the fucking lottery. Faux Kira is defeated, L doesn't have to sacrifice himself, and she's going to save Takada. If she's really lucky, maybe she'll even get to see Raye, before the day is out.

"I am his agent," Naomi says, stepping away from Takada. "Get up. You do not belong on the floor. You are a person, not a slave."

Takada gapes at her, and Naomi drags her to her feet.

"If you want to reach L, you will have to do as I say," she instructs, a little more kindly.

Takada clings to her hand, and nods vigorously.

"Then…what. What does he want me to do?"

"Bring it to me," Naomi tells her firmly. "Bring me the death note. All of it. Every single page."

* * *

"I don't know about you, but I barely heard any of that," Mail says dryly. "All I heard was Raye swearing at the computer the whole way through."

"I…I don't believe it," L murmurs, numb with shock and fear and relief. "She…she did it."

And _god_, he didn't believe she would. When she first admitted to working for L, he was certain that Naomi was going to die.

But no. She and Rae have judged Takada perfectly. Expertly. He cannot fault them. They took a tremendous risk, and it paid off.

Naomi is amazing, and he is going to miss her when she leaves.

Rae is amazing, too. And it isn't leaving him just yet.

"She has not admitted to having the note yet," L says out loud. "We do not yet have sufficient evidence."

"This chick is going to confess though, right?" Mail asks. "I mean, we've pretty much got her."

"Until she is in our custody, I make no such assumptions."

He still feels off-kilter.

_In the end, it is so easy._

"You aren't going to fucking let her off, are you?" Raye asks, sounding severely short of breath. "After everything she's done, you aren't going to try and save her?"

"'Save' is a very vague word," Mail points out sagely. "A lifetime in prison is probably nothing compared to the sort of abuse she was alluding to earlier."

_Yes_, L thinks. _And I will save her from…oh._

An epiphany.

He can follow it, now. He can almost understand why the hell-god did what he did. He – or she – was setting Naomi up to be an alternative option for Takada. That's why he made her speak.

_We are witnessing a choice, here. We are witnessing a redemption_.

And by all of L's estimations, Takada should come through. Should be saved from hell. So, he's saving her in multiple ways.

"Any contact from Rae?" Mail asks.

"No," L replies. "It is in their hands now. I trust them."

* * *

Raye can still taste blood from where he's been chewing on the inside of his own mouth. He feels weak and lightheaded from the sudden absence of terror.

They've got Takada.

They've…they've _got_ faux-Kira.

L sent Naomi into a death trap, and Naomi is going to walk back out with a smile and the most feared criminal in the second world at her feet.

Everything is…everything is okay.

That's the thing about L. He's an uncaring bastard, but he always wins in the end.

* * *

There are still tactical problems, of course. Without correspondence from Rae, Naomi must contact L directly if she wants to organize a meeting point.

It would be suicide for L to show his face while Takada is anything less than handcuffed and confined. So either Naomi is going to borrow a vehicle, and meet them back at base, or she'll bring Takada here.

No, here is too dangerous. Naomi and Rae will know that. But headquarters is risky, too. Takada is still one of Light's main accomplices, however reformed she might be.

L buzzes Watari.

"Set us up a temporary base, please," he says softly. "In one of the adjacent suburbs. We need a makeshift interrogation room, too."

"Understood."

L shifts on his seat. The more he thinks about it, the more this seems almost…too easy. Because of the hell god, or because of something else?

If this all ends, and Takada is incapacitated to help Light, does that mean Light won't come?

L chews hard on his thumbnail.

Even if Light kills him one day, he doesn't want it to be today. He doesn't want it to be _soon_.

He wants more time with Rae.

* * *

So. They know about the death note. Which makes sense, if Naomi was working for L all along.

And it's really quite amazing – _and_ flattering – that someone who is supposed to be trying to apprehend her fell in love with her in the process.

_Maybe_. _Or Naomi has been lying about that the whole time_.

It doesn't matter, Takada realizes. She fell in love with Naomi because Naomi was a big, glowing, green 'exit' sign. And Naomi is getting her out of here. Everything is okay.

_Isn't it_?

Yes. L is here. L can _hear her_. He wants to save her. She has her choice back. There is another road she can take.

"Excuse me, my Lady," someone calls, and a moment later, Grianna Jones is at her left side. "I wanted to talk to you about the-"

"Not now, Gree," Takada says absently, deep in thought.

Gree stops, and turns to Naomi.

"What's going on with you two?" she asks, bewildered. "You do realize we've practically found a way to L, right?"

"Right," Takada says dreamily. "It's a good day."

If L is listening, then he can probably hear everything she's said. And everything she's said thus far. Her declarations of love for Kira, the noises she made against Naomi last night, her frightened, tearful, hopeful confessions in her room.

"There's something else we need to tend to first," Naomi tells her candidly. "Please wait here. I promise I won't take up more of our Lady's time than absolutely necessary."

"Fine," Gree replies, and wanders off again.

"What's _she_ hanging around for," Naomi mutters.

Takada reaches out, grabs her by the wrist, and tugs her closer, within whispering distance.

"Would he have me turn in all my followers, as well?"

"No," Naomi replies. "They can take their chances with the police. But I want you to declare now if you or any of the others have other notes."

"Not to my knowledge," Takada replies.

This feels so strange, being completely honest with someone. She's _never_ been able to talk openly about the note before, not with anyone who wasn't Light. It feels like confessing to some horrible secret, like cleaning out some festering wound. Kiyomi Takada feels light, and free, and anchorless.

Everything is different, now. She will be ordinary.

No more suffering. No more secrecy. No more Light.

* * *

Grianna is hanging around in the background, like a bad smell. When they reach Takada's room, Naomi makes sure to lock the door behind her. The last thing they need right now is a witness.

"What will happen after this?" Takada asks.

"One thing at a time," Naomi says firmly. "Once we're done here, I want you to tell your disciples that we're going out to check on something. The story will need to be believable. We can't have any of them following us when we leave."

"Leave, and not come back," Takada murmurs, sounding as if she's testing out the words. "Hmm."

"Give me the note, Takada," Naomi orders. "Show me where it is."

* * *

Naomi will probably restrain her in some way, before taking her to L. She'll probably be bound and blindfolded. Maybe tortured or drugged. The initial steps of this journey will not be pleasant.

But Takada is intensely familiar with the unpleasant. No matter what L inflicts on her, it cannot be worse than what she's suffered at Jason's hands. And…and L is a good man. Probably a good man. He won't have the same sort of…

_Wasn't L the enemy?_

_Supposed to be the enemy?_

Takada's hand hesitates, halfway to the safe. Once she opens that safe, Naomi will know everything. It will be as good as a confession. She will have absolutely no chance of going back.

Here and now, this is her choice. L is listening. Probably watching, too. Maybe watching. He can probably only see whatever Naomi can see. And Takada has not yet said anything to directly incriminate herself.

L's inquisition will take days, even if she manages to evade jail in the end. The timeframe for saving Light from Jason will have passed.

There is no going back.

So…what does she choose?

Good or evil?

Which side is good? The world is filled with shades of grey. No black, and no white. No absolutes. Only people. And people are weak. People make mistakes.

She can put her hand on that safe, or she can pretend she has no idea what Naomi is talking about.

"Is it in there, Takada?" Naomi asks. And her usually gentle voice sounds harsh and grating to Takada's troubled, conflicted ears.

She can be an exhausted goddess, or she can be ordinary and comfortable. But she cannot have both. Light and L are magnets, polar opposites. No one can have both of them.

She has to choose.

Right here, right now. This second.

She has to choose.

_Now_.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ again, it will probably be a couple of weeks before the next chapter is out. my apologies in advance.

+ thank you very much for reading.


	43. Good

notes/warnings

+ swearing.

+ taking some liberties with the death note universe canon. again.

* * *

**Good**

The safe is tiny, metallic-looking, and bolted to the wall and floor. Naomi has to admire Takada's discretion. A safe is hardly an original stashing-place, but this one is designed to blend in with the background, so that it would not be obvious to anyone searching the place.

Not that searching will be necessary, now.

Takada stands up, flexes her shoulders just once, and hands Naomi the notebook without any hesitation at all.

The cover is worn black leather, adorned with tiny silver studs. The notebook is light in Naomi's hands, the texture forgettable. Nothing about its innocuous appearance belies the power within.

Naomi flips through the pages briefly, and is sickened by how many are completely filled with names. Takada's writing is neat and tidy – a mix of cursive English and kanji - and there are several rows of names in every ruled line. Thousands of names. Thousands.

_Too much. Too much._

_So many lives_.

Naomi wants to drop the thing, fling it away, have nothing to do with it, but she can't.

Not yet.

She has to take it safely back to the only man who can be trusted with it.

"Thank you," she tells Takada, a little shakily. "Is there any more?"

If Takada says no, then Naomi won't believe her. Takada is the type to have little insurance policies hidden all over the place.

"There are eight pieces more," Takada says politely, already heading back towards her bed. "I'll show you where they are."

Naomi grins, hard.

"I'm…I'm glad you're doing this," she says, after a moment.

Takada pauses, mid-rummage, and meets Naomi's eyes.

"So am I," she says, agreeably.

She looks different, now. Her movements are fluid and confident, her expression calm, her voice steady. She no longer reminds Naomi of a child.

_You must have agonized over this decision_, Naomi thinks.

"Eight, huh?" Rae asks, thoughtfully. "I know where five of them are, and I'm guessing there's a sixth in that watch she's wearing. There's a distinct probability that she's telling the truth."

Takada tugs a sheaf of paper from under her pillow, and passes it to Naomi.

"One," she says, simply, and then heads towards the wardrobe, opening a wooden panel that fits almost seamlessly into the inner wall.

"Didn't know about that one," Rae admits. "The problem is that there are too many cameras here. I couldn't move anything around."

_You're so vain_, Naomi thinks. _Can't you see that doesn't matter, now?_

"Two," Takada announces, and she's smiling.

It's a good day.

* * *

Grianna Jones abandons all pretence of business as soon as the door is closed. She hovers just outside, listening intently.

"There's a camera right there, you know," Ryuk points out. "The other humans in the observation room will see you. Why are you doing this? You're going to get into trouble."

Not that he cares, but he always likes to be helpful towards humans who can't see or hear him.

He's pretty sure Grianna was one of the people to own Rem's notebook. Before Rem met L and fell in like or love or whatever. And Rem had a nasty habit of giving away too much information to the people she cared for. And she, in turn, never got into trouble, because the Queen was excessively fond of _her_.

Which isn't fair. Ryuk gets yelled at for _everything_. _All_ the time.

But the point is; Jones might know something about hell. Or about the Queen. She might even be able to recognise that Takada is in hell.

Ryuk frowns at the ceiling. Rem might have mentioned this woman, now that he thinks about it. Wasn't she out for…revenge, or something? Or…no, wasn't she trying to save someone from hell? A son? A daughter?

"No point pleading with Jas," he tells Grianna, sagely. "She won't listen, no matter how much she likes you."

She's got too many rules, does the Queen.

* * *

Takada extracts notebook pages from the mattress under the bed, a loose floorboard, a panel in the ceiling, and a tiny gap between the wall and an ornate bookcase. Quite frankly, Naomi is impressed by her forethought and imagination. Lastly, Takada produces a rolled-up sheaf of note paper from inside one of the logs in the abandoned fireplace, and returns to Naomi's side without ceremony.

Naomi counts the pages silently. Seven. There ought to be eight.

Takada is fiddling with her watch.

"Here," she says, perhaps a tad breathlessly. "The eighth piece."

The final page is barely the size of a coin. Naomi wonders idly how many names it could possibly hold.

"Where is the rest of this?" she asks carefully.

"Final page of the notebook itself," Takada replies dutifully.

Naomi opens up the death note, flips to the back cover, and sure enough, there is a tiny, circular piece missing from the facing page.

She has the notebook, and all of the pieces.

Then…there is no reason to suspect that Takada is lying. They've covered everything.

Naomi exhales slowly.

"You need to phone L," Rae tells her. "We don't have time for me to go and speak with him. I'm going to search this room, one more time."

_Yes. That makes sense_.

It will be safe to call L, now. After all, Takada is on their side.

"I must contact my boss," Naomi tells Takada. "Please don't leave this room. It will only take a moment."

"Ah, of course," Takada says quietly. "May I send one email, while we are waiting? I want to let Big Jason know that his arrangement has been terminated. I want…I want him to find out from me."

Naomi hesitates. It's still a risk. Takada might call for backup. But then, she could call for backup anyway. It's not that Naomi is in a safe situation. It's that Naomi trusts Takada. She believes in this woman she's saved.

And Takada would not have handed over the death note, if she intended to fight Naomi. Takada needs L, now.

Naomi can understand that sentiment.

"You have two minutes," Naomi says firmly, gesturing to the ancient old computer that is squished between a shiny printer and a coffee machine in the corner of the room. "You may only use that computer, please."

"I understand," Takada says demurely.

* * *

When the phone rings, L knows they have won. One corner of his mouth lifts unbidden in a lopsided smile.

_Yes_.

"Hello?" he says politely.

"Oh god, it's good to hear your voice," Naomi whispers. "Geeze."

L checks the visual feed. Takada is using a computer. She's still in the same room as Naomi, so Naomi can't risk showing any weakness.

"Raye is fine," he says pre-emptively. "Everyone is fine. We still need to keep M from finding out the truth."

There is no simple way to explain to Naomi that Takada might just vanish, once she reaches some arbitrary point in the confession process. Rae will have to handle that if it happens before they reach L.

"You've heard everything so far?" Naomi asks.

"Yes."

"So, what do you want me to do now?"

"Make your excuses to the disciples, take a relatively generic vehicle, and leave from the westernmost exit," L instructs. "We have a temporary base set up in Mashobra Avenue. That is your destination, but I'll intercept you at the end of Clam Road so you can be rid of the notebook."

"Clam Road is barely a block away," Naomi hisses. "It's too close. It's under surveillance."

"I will not be recognisable, I will not leave the car, and I daresay the disciples will be preoccupied with the onslaught of police officers," L counters, neatly.

"Still," Naomi grits. "Can't someone else do this?"

"Raye needs to get Mail back to headquarters, and Watari is too far away," L says calmly. "I want both of you out of that building in seven minutes. Tell Takada these are my orders."

Takada wants him to save her, now. More pressure. One more person in the world, hoping that somehow, he'll be able to defeat Light.

L doesn't want to think about how disappointed they'll all be.

When the time comes.

Now is not that time, though. Not today. Today, they have succeeded.

Over sixty police officers are on standby, vehicles pulling into the streets around Takada's base right at this very second. Naomi has the notebook. Everything is going to be fine.

L stuffs his mask into his pocket. Then he presses his foot to the accelerator, and steers the vehicle back onto the road. As an afterthought, he moves the laptop to the middle of the dashboard, so that he can monitor the visual feed while driving.

Just…just in case.

* * *

"We ought to go to Leah's office before we leave," Takada says thoughtfully. "It will seem more casual if we just…drop by. Rather than formally announcing our departure. After all, we are simply running an errand, right?"

Naomi beams at her. _. _

"That is fine. However, you must also order the guards to switch off the camera to the westernmost garage."

Takada's cameras aren't sophisticated enough to pick up conversation-level noises, but they are definitely capable of showing Naomi handcuffing and blindfolding Takada. And the pursuit of an angry mob might make things difficult.

"Is that where you will restrain me?" Takada asks. "I see. I understand."

Actually, it's sort of weird, when Naomi thinks about it. Takada didn't have enough money for even the most basic of visual taps, at the beginning. That was why she had to hire thugs to carry L back to her hideout. But then she had a super-expensive humanoid robot as part of her induction process. And yet she _still_ doesn't have the money for superior surveillance equipment.

Takada must be _really_ bad at managing her finances. There's no other explanation.

"I do what I have to do," Naomi tells her, sympathetically.

"The room is clear," Rae reports. "I can't see any other pages hidden anywhere. Of course, that doesn't rule out the fact that she's given pieces to other people."

_Takada would never trust anyone else with her notebook_, Naomi thinks.

She _knows_ Takada. She's confident of that, now.

"Try to get her to confess right now," Rae continues. "That would be ideal."

_That would be useful, _Naomi concedes. _But…_

But if Takada admits to using the notebook, then L might not give her a chance. He might just hand her straight over to the police.

No. L saves people. He thinks Takada is in hell. He wouldn't do that.

Probably.

"Time's up," Naomi says out loud. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"Yes," Takada murmurs. "Let's."

Naomi checks her watch. Six minutes to go. She can't be late for L.

When she opens the door, the hallway is completely empty. No Grianna. No disciples. Presumably everyone is gathered in Leah's room, chasing down a false lead. Naomi almost feels bad for them.

Almost.

"I shall miss Bronson," Takada says thoughtfully. "I think, deep down, he might still be a good person."

"That is up to the law to decide, now," Naomi tells her, conversationally. "People won't be charged without evidence."

"People are not charged often enough, if you ask me," Takada says, with distaste.

"And that's how everything started," Naomi surmises. "That's why you wound up following Kira, huh? Tell me, did you write all those names in the death note yourself, or did other disciples help you?"

Takada hesitates.

"I would rather not discuss that here," she whispers. "Can it wait until we are safely in the car? People may still be listening."

_Damn_, Naomi thinks, looking around for Rae. It hasn't caught up yet. She wonders if it's talking to the other Shinigami.

She'd like it with her, right now. This is still dangerous. This is still delicate.

"It is important that everyone is safe," Naomi agrees, grudgingly.

* * *

Ryuk tackles Rae in the doorframe, grinning hysterically.

"Get _off_ me," Rae demands. "I need to stay with Naomi."

"But this is exciting," Ryuk says, gleefully. "Isn't it exciting? Our two girls going off together? Tell me, did Kiyomi make the right choice?"

Rae cocks its head.

Sometimes Ryuk gives away more information than he means to. Therefore, it might be worthwhile to pay him attention for a moment.

"What choice?"

"The choice between 'goddess' and 'ordinary', of course," Ryuk explains, gesticulating uselessly.

_The__ choice between Light and L_, Rae interprets.

And what? That's not even…that's not even a fucking choice. It's not like either of those options are…

The universe shifts, ever so slightly.

In the room, something starts to whirr.

L is…

L is…

_It doesn't matter. It's a false choice. It's a false situation_.

L is.

Sometimes, maybe.

Here, today. Only today. Only right now, in this instant.

Against some version of Kira that existed only in Takada's mind, surely.

L is…

Justice?

The whirring intensifies to a hum, rhythmic and mechanical.

_No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no!_

It's just the exhaustion talking. It's been such a long case. L is nothing. L is without consequence. It's okay, it's okay.

"Tell me," Rae says, shakily. "Is this her test, Ryuk?"

"Redemption or eternity," Ryuk confirms brightly. "She's going to see L, right?"

"Yes," Rae replies, testily.

"Then she made the right choice," Ryuk says. "That's a relief. I was worried this would never be over."

"Why are you telling me this, now? You never even mentioned redemption to me before. I had to find out about it from _Rem_."

"Eh, it's a human thing," Ryuk says with a shrug. "It doesn't much concern us, right?"

"Whatever," Rae replies.

Takada is still a mass-murderer. She deserves to rot in hell, even if she _did_ choose L.

The hum hasn't stopped. Rae looks around.

"What's making that noise?"

Ryuk shrugs.

The room is empty, save the two of them. There is no one here to be using machinery. It isn't the sound of a fridge, or air conditioner. It's different.

Rae's eyes land on the computer. A sheet of paper tumbles to the ground, followed by another, and another.

_What the hell?_

"Why is the printer running?" Rae asks, confused.

"I dunno," Ryuk replies.

* * *

Naomi is walking more quickly than usual. She wants this to be over. The strain on her must have been immense, acting as a double agent for so very long.

It will take them just under a minute to reach Leah's office. Takada knows this building well, the dimensions, the distances, the scope of the cameras.

There is good, and there is evil. Her decision doesn't only affect her, it affects the world. And Light wants to save the world.

But that no longer matters. She's not making her decision to be a good person. She's making her decision for _her_.

For the first time ever, for her.

Takada feels peaceful, her earlier inner turmoil completely evaporated.

Naomi checks her watch, _again_. She's beautiful. She's gained weight since Takada first met her, but she's still beautiful.

She has can communicate with L. L is watching. L is listening. And that _means_ something.

L has extended his hand, like Light did, so many years ago. He opened up the world to her, he gave her _options_. She's not Jason's slave, and she's not Light's slave.

And it's not that she doesn't love Light. It's just that saving him was going to be so _hard_.

Grianna Jones has appeared again, tottering along some distance behind them. She's too nosey for her own good, but that isn't important right now.

L trusts Naomi, and that's important.

Let it never be said that Kiyomi Takada does not know how to use the resources given to her.

Naomi can communicate with L.

Takada has a fast printer. It ought to be done by now.

Takada checks her watch.

In forty seconds, they should be just outside Leah's office.

* * *

Ryuk doesn't try to stop Rae from getting to the computer, because hey, it's not his business to interfere. Everything is part of the queen's plan.

He can't wait 'til he can get out of this place. Back to the third world. Back to his friend.

"This isn't an email," Rae says, and it sounds confused. It sounds almost _scared_. Geeze. This is going to be bad, then. "This is…this is a _document_."

It's not really a document. It's more like a sentence.

'_Naomi Penber does everything in her power to cause L to come - unarmed and alone - to her exact location at 17 Baker Street, then commits suicide after he has arrived.'_

"What the hell?" Rae demands. "This is…this is what she'd write in the notebook. Why is it on her compu…"

The other Shinigami trails off, its attention clearly drawn to the pile of paper on the ground. Every page bearing the same, damning sentence. And Rae's clever eyes pick out the sheet of death note almost immediately, thicker and darker than the other papers, and faintly lined.

_Oh, that's right_.

Takada hid part of her note in the printer paper. And Ryuk had never been able to understand why.

Humans are _awesome_.

"No," Rae says, in horror and disbelief. "No. She can't have. She fucking…L! _L_!"

And without wasting another second, Rae turns and bolts from the room.

_L_? Ryuk wonders. _What about Naomi?_

* * *

It _was_ going to be so hard to save Light. Except now she has a notebook that can control people, and someone who can and will contact L.

It's easy to be lead astray. It's easy to make the wrong turn, on the path of good and evil. It's easy to be taken in by emotions, by love, by pretty words.

Takada smiles, serenely, because there was never any doubt. She is Kira, after all. People never stopped believing in her. She'll be rid of Jason, she'll get Light back, and she'll _win_. And it's a pity about Naomi, but it's not Takada's fault she can't prioritise. It's not Takada's fault she's a lying, cheating scumbag, either.

It couldn't have gone better if Takada had planned it from the very beginning. She's handed over all the pieces of death note. She's seemingly chosen L. There's no reason that he shouldn't come. Naomi will stay alive until he's here, so he'll think that everything is fine.

Takada is beautiful, and she's smart, and she's absolutely sure that she's right.

Goddess. She chooses _goddess_.

She deserves nothing less.

It's a good day.

* * *

This isn't happening.

This isn't fucking…

This…Jesus fuck L fucking Takada stupid _stupid _no, no, no, NO, NO, NO! Takada cannot have L. She cannot _take_ L. Naomi's fucking expendable, not L.

_He is mine_!

_Mine fucking mine I can have everything I want oh fuck why is this happening?_

Takada is evil. Takada is going to destroy everything.

_No you can't you can't you CAN'T no no no no!_

No. Because Naomi loves L, so if Naomi kills herself before the death note takes effect, L will be safe.

And she will. She loves L.

People are so easy to manipulate, when they're in love.

"Naomi," Rae snarls, before it's even fully through the wall. "You need to gnfgh."

Ryuk fucking fucking FUCKING Ryuk drags Rae away from Naomi, back into the other room, out of sight.

_No dear god fuck no no no! _

_There are no resources._

_I HAVE NO RESOURCES!_

Rae's mind courses into screaming, psychotic panic.

"You can't do that, sunshine," Ryuk says cheerfully. "You gotta let these things run their course."

* * *

Rae comes bursting into the hall, right before Naomi puts her hand on Leah's door. It shouts something incoherent, and then disappears again.

Naomi hesitates, and frowns.

_Something has gone wrong?_

"What is it?" Takada asks, her voice low and concerned. "Naomi? Is everything okay?"

"I think so," Naomi replies, because she can't tell Takada about Rae, of course. "I was just-"

It happens in a rush, in a second, without warning or aura. Naomi's previously-benign illness transforms into something absolute, and manifest, and all-too-familiar.

Kira.

_No_, she thinks, because her tongue sits useless in her mouth. The wiring between her mind and her body has been severed.

_No! I'm not ready!_

She has to save Takada.

She has to see _Raye_ again. And L. There are too many things to do.

She cannot move her hands or her feet. She cannot turn around. She cannot even move her own eyes.

She cannot warn Takada.

Naomi feels absolutely sick. Violently, horrendously ill.

It's all in her mind. That's all she has left.

She knows. She's done this before.

_Light._

_You fucking_-

The voice comes. The warning. The instructions. The final toll of the bell. It's not Light's voice. It wasn't Light's voice last time, either. It's just a voice. The voice.

The voice of the death note.

_Say 'I don't understand'. Say it three times._

And finally, Naomi understands. L. They want L.

Dear god, her body will call for L, and he'll come, and he'll be killed.

She has no options. She is only a witness. Takada steps into her line of vision, and she's _smiling_. And Naomi realises, for the second time, that she is a fool and that everything she's worked for amounts to exactly nothing.

_Was it you?_

She won't know. She may not ever know for sure. It doesn't matter. She's going to die. And she's going to take L with her.

If she could have one thing, just one thing, she'd ask for the power to end this now. To defy the death note. To die immediately, and silently.

But she cannot ask. No one can hear her.

_Say it three times_, the voice repeats. _Say it…now_.

And somewhere, from the very far reaches of Naomi's mind, a tiny, unfamiliar voice replies.

_No_.

Naomi feels her heart stop, and then there is nothing.

* * *

Naomi has fallen down. She faints, sometimes, L knows. But he still worries.

And then he hears something strange.

It is three twenty-three in the afternoon. There shouldn't be church bells ringing at this time.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ a week late, and a thousand words short. hooray for me!

+ thank you, thank you.


	44. Pandemonium

notes/warnings

+ swearing. so much swearing. it's like I just wrote 'fuck' five thousand times and then added a few adjectives to shake things up.

* * *

**Pandemonium**

Rae finally manages to free itself from Ryuk's frustratingly strong clutches, and rushes back to the hall just in time to see Naomi fall. To see the name over her head disappear and, with it, a lifespan that indicates she should have had many decades remaining.

Naomi drops like a stone, dead before she even hits the ground. She does not contact L. She does not speak. She does nothing but die.

Rae feels some of the screaming panic in its mind subside.

_You didn't…you defied the death note. You….how did you do that? _

Rae shakes its head. It doesn't matter. Right now, it doesn't matter.

It has to get back to L. It has to be _sure_.

* * *

Takada stares at Naomi's lifeless form, her happiness draining swiftly to be replaced by unreserved, unswerving terror.

This can't be right.

She's supposed to _summon_ _L._ She's supposed to stay alive until L enters the building. She's…

_Maybe she's still alive! _Takada thinks, wildly. _Maybe she knows L really well, and this is some sort of elaborate signal. _

She reaches out, touches Naomi face, checks her pulse, her eyes, the colour of her gums.

Nothing. No sign of life.

Dear god, she's _dead_. And her death alone cannot summon an unwitting, unarmed L. Surely, surely not. No, L will panic. L will come with soldiers. He'll be _angry_. And what's worse, he'll be ready. Takada can barely breathe.

Naomi Penber wasn't just supposed to keel over. The note cannot fail. Should not be able to fail.

Then...why?

_This is a disaster._

Takada's brilliant, beautiful plan comes crumbling down around her. She needs L. She needs _L_, and she needs him dead. Naomi was supposed to bring him here, so Takada could kill him. It was supposed to be perfect. Naomi's ruined everything and how can someone ignore the writing in a fucking death note?

Dear god, where the hell is she supposed to go, now? She chose Light because saving him was suddenly easy. If she cannot join L, and she cannot kill L, then what can she do?

Takada snatches the death note from Naomi's unresisting hands, her own fingers trembling visibly.

"What have you done?" Grianna asks with interest, appearing out of nowhere like the infernal fucking idiot that she is. "Why did you kill her, my lady? Was she disloyal? I thought you liked her."

"_Shut up_," Takada yells. "Fuck's sake, just _shut up_!"

There are still taps on Naomi, somewhere. L had police at the ready. And Grianna has….Grianna's just given him a reason to be very, very angry.

"Go back to the others," she snaps. "Tell them L has officers on the move. Everyone has my permission to kill as many people as they need to. I will contact you later."

"Understood," Gree says, with a really strange smile.

Takada ignores her, and turns to look at Naomi one last time.

She feels the tiniest twinge of regret. Naomi was her friend.

No. Naomi was a _liar_.

"You won't find me, L," she says with certainty. "I'll find you, but you won't find me."

* * *

"What?" Raye sputters, and he feels as though his blood has turned to ice. "_What did she say?_"

No. _No_. It's a lie. It has to be a lie.

"That lady was talking like Naomi was dead," Mail points out, grimly, and Raye wants to fucking stab his heart out.

"_I know what she said, shut up!_"

There's no way. His beautiful wife.

There's no way.

Raye grabs his headphones with shaking fingers.

"L!" he snarls, ignoring Mail's curious expression. "L! What's happening? _What's happening to my wife?_"

* * *

Watari has access to both the audio and visual feeds, and he anticipates L's call with a heavy heart.

This is going to be hard. Things have been hard for L anyway, of late. What with the notebook, and the Shinigami, and the resurgence of his old enemy. And L himself has changed, too, perhaps for the worse. He's become more human, more prone to love and sadness and despair.

And grief.

Watari _liked_ Naomi. She was talented and she was sensible. She'd have been a good match for L. She's married, of course. _Was_ married. But perhaps, one day, things might have been different.

"Watari," L says, sounding childlike and scared despite the voice filter. "Watari, something's happened."

_Oh no_.

"Yes, L." Watari says, gently.

"Naomi isn't getting up. Still. And…Grianna said…Takada said..."

This is terrible. He hasn't heard L sound so lost in years.

_You know this as well as I do._

"Naomi is dead, L," Watari says, frankly. "The heartbeat monitor I installed in her visual tap confirms that."

"She cannot be dead," L says blankly. "I promised her she would be fine."

"I am mobilising the police, as per your earlier instruction," Watari informs him. "L. I am sorry."

"That is fine," L says. "We will arrest Takada on site, with her supporters. It may be best, since Naomi cannot…since Naomi…cannot….cannot get up."

L's voice cracks on the second-to-last syllable.

"Raye Penber is screaming, Watari," he whimpers. "What do I do?"

"She is dead, L."

"She is _not dead_!"

"L."

"Watari," L pleads.

_I raised you to be logical. I didn't raise you to be like this, _Watari thinks, angrily. _You are meant to be a hero. You can't…_

Watari hesitates, turning his own internal monologue over and over inside his mind.

Yes, he raised L to be a hero. That is what L has to be, because that is all he's ever known. And even now, even now when he has managed to reach out to people - to make firm acquaintances and _friends_ – he cannot rest. He cannot stop.

L has never had anything of his own. Not since he was six and a half years old, anyway. Not since Watari first met him, when he was filthy and exhausted and living out of a disused office in a regional police station in Nagoya.

Watari remembers. L didn't have any toys, even back then. Just a bed and a computer. Just a barely school-aged _child_ helping the police solve crimes, because nobody knew where else to send him.

And Watari never offered him anything else. Watari never offered him childhood, never offered him a chance. He just made L into something the world needed.

Watari couldn't be that hero, so he…

_What sort of a man does something like this? _

In isolation, it sounds so cruel. But Watari was not wrong. The world needed L. The right thing to do is not always the same as the _good_ thing to do. People who try to hard to be good lose sight of what is right.

Kira was proof of that.

This is a horrible time for introspection.

"Watari," L wails. "She was my _friend_."

"She is dead, L," Watari repeats. "You know she is dead."

"I," L breathes, his voice tiny and soft and heartbreaking. "I have to…yes, I know, of course, she…I have to. I have to go there. I have to. Just in case. You know."

L laughs, soft, short and hysterical. Then he stops. Snaps. Closes down. Watari's witnessed this before.

He knows how L breaks.

"Please stay where you are," Watari replies, and he almost never gives L orders. He's let L make all the decisions - take all the responsibility - since before L was even legal. "It is dangerous out there. We have no knowledge of where Takada has gone."

"She can't be," L mutters. "She must be. I have to…I ought to contact Raye."

A moment later, the screen flickers and dies, and the intercom goes silent.

L has cut off all communications with Watari, in a single second.

"No," Watari says, quietly. "No."

* * *

"Raye," L's voice says finally, _finally_, after what feels like _hours_ of Raye yelling and gibbering into an unresponsive speaker. "Raye. I…I am sorry."

Raye feels sick, feels like the world has been pulled out from underneath him.

"What…what are you saying?" he rasps, barely able to speak.

_Don't you tell me that, you bastard._

_Don't you …don't you DARE! _

_After EVERYTHING._

"Faux-Kira must have had another piece of the note," L says, and he sounds completely calm, almost surreal. "I do not know why she did this. Please, stay where you are."

Takada had another piece of the note.

Takada had another piece of the note.

TAKADA HAD ANOTHER PIECE OF THE NOTE, AND L DOESN'T KNOW WHY SHE DID THIS?

"Naomi," Raye whispers.

His wife. His beautiful wife.

L disconnects completely, and a huge black hole unfolds in Raye's world, hollow and empty. Impossible. She was supposed to _live_.

Raye throws his head back, and it connects with the door with a _crunch_.

L has destroyed them. He has actually destroyed them. He got to keep Naomi working for him until the very end, and now, and _now_.

Raye cannot process this. This is huge. This is a bad dream, dear god, no, no _no! _ They were going to leave together. They _have_ to leave together. Raye wants to have a family, he wants to sleep curled around Naomi, he wants her tired smile and _everything is broken_.

Raye feels like he might be dead, too. He cannot feel his arms or legs. He can barely see what is right in front of him. He's stuck here, safe, in a car, while Takada just…

Takada, who is essentially the next Kira. Takada, who Naomi gave up _everything_ to save. Takada, who is greedy and selfish and murderous bad EVIL BAD MURDERER.

Raye sees red, sees the train doors sliding closed again. Only this time, he doesn't have to take it lying down.

_This isn't over. _Takada probably thinks this is over. Takada's probably laughing at him. At them. Just like Light must have laughed, so many years ago. As if she's _clever_. As if she's a _good person_.

Raye feels the last frayed shards of sanity slip away from him. Like nothing else matters.

Nothing else matters.

"You haven't won, Takada," he hisses, at the dashboard, at the _universe_. "You'll pay. You'll pay for _everything_, I swear."

Raye has to go to Naomi. He has to kill Takada. He's not sure which one he needs the most right now. He reaches for the door handle, reaches for his revolver and finds that it is gone, vanished from his holster.

Someone chuckles, deep and sinister.

"Is that right?" Mail says, with a feral, awful smile. He loads Raye's gun with frightening speed and precision. "Then, let's go, Raye Penber. Let's go and get revenge."

* * *

Leah has just about pinpointed the exact location of L's daughter when someone kicks in the door. Lots of someones. Dressed in blue uniforms, filling the entire room, and…

_Holy shit!_

Police officers. _Hundreds_ of them. With fucking _firearms._

Someone starts screaming.

Leah thinks it might be her.

* * *

L feels his own feet thud against the pavement, over and over. Being barefoot has never slowed him down.

His mind is in pieces, broken and scattered and barely functioning. But that isn't important right now. L doesn't need to think, he only needs to react. And he feels strangely quiescent.

L can see Takada's headquarters, half a block away. He can be by Naomi's side within one minute. He knows the exact layout, after all.

He knows where she fell.

He runs, harder and faster. The bones in his feet jar rhythmically. Painfully. L isn't good at running, but that's okay. The longer he runs, the longer before he has to deal with all of this.

L arrives at number seventeen, Baker Street, and jumps the fence.

There are thirteen police cars parked haphazardly outside. The place will already be swarming with officers, intent on arresting everyone they can find.

It won't be enough. Takada has already fled.

L sent Naomi into this place. L should have come, in her place. He should have walked to Roper's house and sacrificed himself. Instead, he was selfish. He wanted life. He wanted time. He wanted Rae. He wanted to _win_.

He's not even sure what he's doing here, any more. What does he want, to see a dead body? He's seen plenty of those.

He's seen his own mother.

L pushes open the door to the top level of the building. It's abandoned, of course. Takada lived and worked entirely from the basement. There's just the one staircase – one entrance – and L presumes that the police officers have all joined the fray on the lower level.

He should have had more input into this. Some of them should be out, trawling the town for Kiyomi Takada. Some of them should be waiting up here, in case she comes back.

_Perhaps it doesn't matter._ Perhaps nothing matters.

L feels as if he is very far away, watching all of this on a screen, someone else's problem, someone else's life. As if Naomi's death cannot possibly be true.

As an afterthought, he realises he is wearing the mask Wedy made for him, though he does not recall putting it on.

He doubts all the supporters will be arrested, yet. He could still be killed. There is no guarantee that others do not have fragments of the note.

Naomi died in the hall.

Naomi is dead. L doesn't feel anything. If he can get to her…if he can just _see._

What will that prove?

"L!" Rae exclaims, from right behind him. "Fuck, you're all right! Wait, where are you going?"

"I have to see Naomi," L says, softly. He cares for Rae, but he can't care right now. If he feels anything at all, then the floodgates will burst and he'll destroy himself.

He can hold that off, for a little while. He can live in the moment.

"No!" Rae says, harshly, and drags him away from the stairs. "She's _dead_, L. There is nothing you can do. Don't go down there."

"You've confirmed it?" L asks blankly. "Oh."

Rae seems to be excessively distressed, considering that it never particularly liked Naomi.

"Listen, Takada's escaped with the notebook. Last I saw her, she was heading southeast of here. You have to get the police after her. She won't be on foot for long."

L stares at Rae, his eye wide with spontaneous revelation.

"Of course," he breathes.

Takada. He _has_ to follow Takada, because Takada just failed her own test. She will be transported back to hell soon, presumably.

The god…the god of hell may come for her.

"Where exactly did you see her?" L enquires.

"Gretnog Street," Rae replies. "Hurry up and make the call, idiot."

L can't focus on more than one thing at once. He _needs_ to find the hell god. If…if he gets Mello back, then losing Naomi might be…

Losing Naomi might be…

Rae confirmed it. Rae saw her die. But…can he plead with the hell god? Can he get Naomi back, too? Can the hell-god reverse death, as well as control hell?

Probably not.

Regardless, L needs to get that notebook off of Takada. He is the only person he can trust with it.

"Excellent," L murmurs, turns, and starts running in the opposite direction.

He can hear Rae yelling at him – _screaming, _even - but right now, he cannot care.

* * *

Kiyomi Takada is exhausted, winded, struggling for breath, but she can't stop.

She _won't_ stop.

L and the police will be looking for her. Looking for the death note. But as long as she has the note, she can win. She can find Light. She can defeat Jason. She has the Shinigami eyes. She can relocate and start again.

Stupid, _stupid_ fucking Light. She's done all this for him, and _where is he? _He was always so suave and in-control. How did he even wind up with a fuckhead like Jason?

Takada is finally forced to stop from sheer lack of oxygen. She takes momentary cover behind a dilapidated amenities block, her lungs burning and her mind racing. If it comes to an out-and-out brawl, what can she do? L will have his face hidden, and so will the others. If they know he is L, she can use them like Naomi. But L will have thought of that.

All right. Where can she hide a piece of the note, then? She can use it later, after she's been arrested. No situation is too dire, as long as she has the note.

But where? She cannot hide it in her bra again, they'll be expecting that. Her underwear? Up her nose? In her hair? Is there _anywhere_ they won't check?

It doesn't matter. They suspect her of being Kira, they'll keep her absolutely restrained.

"Damnit," Takada curses out loud.

_How did Light ever manage to beat this man? He has everyone on his side._

"Hey, toots," someone says loudly, next to her ear. "You okay?"

Takada jerks, fear and adrenaline coursing through her veins, but it's Ryuk, it's only Ryuk.

_Jesus fuck, can't you find someone else to annoy?_ Takada thinks vehemently.

"I need your help, Ryuk," she says out loud, trying to sound sweet and appealing. "You don't want them to win, do you? That wouldn't be fun. I know you don't like Big Jason any more than I do."

If Ryuk helps her, she'll be fine. L might have police and weapons and surveillance and underlings and genius, but _she_ has a Shinigami.

"Eh, I'm not really bothered," Ryuk says, with a shrug. "I've always been pretty impartial to the plight of humans, sorry."

"Nonono," Takada says quickly. "Come on, Ryuk. We have to save your master. Is this because I doubted him? I never doubted him. This was all part of my plan to get to L."

That's right. She is loyal, still. Where is Mikami? Where is Misa? _They_ might be too selfish to help their god, but _she_ isn't. Naomi tricked her. Naomi tried to change her. But in the end, she still chose Light.

So she's loyal. She and Light _will_ be together, and they _will_ rule the world. There is no other possible outcome.

"Well, I was pretty impartial to Light, too," Ryuk admits. "I mean, I did kill him, in the end. I really don't care what you do now, but I'm not going to help you, either."

_Godammit, you useless useless USELESS creature!_

"Just _tell_ me if they're coming," Takada snaps. "Tell me what L is doing right now. That's all I need to know."

"You know, I didn't even look," Ryuk says nonchalantly. "I just followed you out here blindly. Hey, I guess that does make me kind of loyal, right?"

"Come _on_," Takada says desperately, tugging at her hair. "I'll give you apples. _Lots_ of apples! Every day!"

Unexpectedly, Ryuk's expression changes. It becomes cold and hard and flint-like, completely out of place on his painted, eternally-smiling face.

Kiyomi Takada takes a small, involuntary step back. She's never seen her Shinigami like this before.

"I don't like people," Ryuk says, slowly and deliberately, "who _lie_ about apples."

_Goddamit._ There's no reasoning with him.

"Fine," Takada growls.

She's on her own.

* * *

Rae trails L for a few, pointless minutes, but the stubborn, ignorant fool refuses to listen to any sort of reason. Even when Rae screams reason really, _really_ loudly. Even when the reason is about how L is going to fucking _die you can't fucking die get back here leave this to someone else FUCKING DAMNIT._

He's so important, when did he become so important? It's fucking _L_. Rae just needs him to write in the note, that's all. Write in the note, and like Rae forever.

Yes. That would be nice.

But L is acting like he can't even _see_, like nothing matters. His feet are already starting to bleed, covered in tiny cuts from running on bitumen.

_He's become unresponsive and cold_, Rae realises.

_And…I can't stop him_.

"You have to live, you….you _wanker_!" Rae bellows, and L doesn't even shrug.

This is so fucking stupid, this isn't even fair. Rae has nothing to work with, and that _never_ used to happen, but now…

_Think, think, think. I am brilliant. I can do this._

_L is going to Takada. Takada still has the note. She won't be able to see his name unless he takes off the mask, but she probably has a gun, and she's still TAKADA, she won't…_

_She's still Takada._

_She's Takada_.

Of course. Rae _does_ have something to work with. Or rather, someone.

The Shinigami pirouettes neatly on the spot, and barrels back towards Baker Street, as fast as its disabled wings can carry it.

And L doesn't even look around, which is _really_ fucking annoying.

_You're supposed to notice me!_

* * *

Mail drives the car right through the fucking wall, into the centre of the building. Raye doesn't care. He fumbles to get out as fast as humanly possible, a pistol clutched in each hand. He doesn't need long-range weapons for this. And Mail still has the revolver.

The building is disgusting, filthy, cobweb-riddled and broken. Sunlight peeks through the beams in several places. There is mould on the windowsills. There are cockroaches running around the floor.

This place is a hellhole. Naomi shouldn't have died _here_, all on her own. All on her fucking _own_.

"This is the entrance," Mail says, pointing at the only stairwell. "The base is on the lower level."

As Raye watches, two police officers come staggering up the stairs. One bleeding profusely. One nursing the other.

"You shouldn't be here," the uninjured one calls. "This is a dangerous place, gentlemen. I'm going to have to ask you both to leave."

"We work for L," Raye grits, his voice filled with hatred and _loss_.

Mail flashes some sort of official identification at them. Raye isn't sure what it says, and he doesn't care. The officers leave without bothering them. Down below, there's a brawl going on. Gunshot and pandemonium and rage.

If Naomi is still alive, then she'll be getting hurt.

If Naomi is still.

If.

But.

"Come on," Raye says hoarsely. "Let's get down there."

He needs to know. He needs to see her. He needs to be there. Fuck Takada. Fuck _everything_.

They were supposed to die together. Or he was supposed to die first. He can't.

He _can't_.

"Raye," a familiar voice says, sharply. "Mail. Wait."

"Where have you been, Shinigami?" Mail asks, and he sounds almost _polite_. As if this is nothing.

Raye wants to punch one of them. He wants to bash his own head against the wall and never stop.

"Yes, _where have you been?_" he howls. "Where the _fuck_ were you, Shinigami, when she was. When she was. _What use are you?_"

He hates this thing. He hates it for existing and for belonging to L and for everything else it's ever done. He hates Mail. He hates this world, this universe, and everyone who isn't Naomi. Everyone who let her die. _Everyone_.

Rae ignores him. Of course.

"Takada went this way," it says pointedly, gesturing in some other direction.

"Oh, you knew too?" Mail asks savagely. "Everyone knew except me, huh?"

"What did you expect, crazy?"

Mail smiles unpleasantly and inclines his head.

"Lead the way, Shinigami. We'll follow you."

"I _won't_," Raye screams, because they don't even fucking _care_. "I don't _care_ about her! I'm…I'm going to see my wife. My _wife_."

Raye doesn't wait for a response. He turns and descends the stairs, three at a time, because he has to be near her, he has to be with her.

One last time.

"See you on the flip side," Mail calls.

* * *

This is awful.

This is the worst thing she's ever, ever done.

She's not like this. She's not a demon. She's not a monster. She's not even an ordinary Shinigami. And she certainly isn't Light.

She doesn't _get_ people killed.

Naomi died long before her lifespan expired. And Jas had to let her die, because by that point, there was no other way to judge Takada.

_What's done is done_.

Even she cannot undo the past. And now…now _Ryuk_ knows she is fallible. When did she become fallible? What happened?

Jas holds up her hands and stares at them morosely. She's so powerful. She's too powerful. Great power spawns great evil.

Where will she go, now that she has broken her own rules? What will she become? Unlawful and unguarded, the great judge of humanity. She could bend the world to her own will. She could crush everything. She could take Mihael, and he'd never know. She could be great. She could be happy.

But L would be so disappointed in her.

Jas pushes her fringe out of her face, and gets to her feet. She feels weaker, now, than ever before, but she can have anything she needs, as long as she has the note. The note is a part of her. It chose her, so long ago.

And now, she must decide what to do.

But not _right_ now.

Jas waves one hand vaguely, and a fully-formed ambulance springs into existence beside her.

Right now, she has somewhere to be.

* * *

L finds Takada standing in an alleyway, barely a kilometer away from her own base. L can recognise that she's put some thought into her position. It's a two-way alley, so she has an exit. And it's predictable that someone moderately clever would attempt to outsmart him by hiding _close_ to the place they're supposed to be running away from.

L ordinarily prides himself on being slightly smarter than people expect, but right now, that doesn't matter.

He doesn't really care whether he lives or dies, today. He just wants to meet the hell-god. That's all. And if he's misjudged, if killing Naomi _wasn't_ Takada's chance at freedom, if Takada is going to go on and live long enough to kill him, well.

Maybe he deserves to die.

L feels the bile rise up in his throat, feels the insanity creep up around the corners of his brain, and he forces it all away. Not now. Not right now. He needs to be numb.

Takada sees him almost immediately. She has a tiny handgun in one perfectly-manicured fist, and the notebook in the other. Her hair is a mess and her makeup is smeared, but she's quite pretty, all the same.

L wonders vaguely whether Light ever saw that in her. Whether Light ever had emotions for anyone at all, or whether he was always just an empty shell. An empty, _lying _shell that constantly damaged and destroyed the people around it.

"Come any closer, old man, and I'll shoot you," Takada declares, even though L hasn't taken so much as a step forward.

"I understand," he says simply. "But what are you going to do?"

Takada scowls at him.

"Since you are wearing a mask, I presume you either work for the police force, or for L," she states, with no small amount of disgust. "Which means that you know who _I_ am. What are _you_ going to do?"

L's eye drifts between Takada's face and the muzzle of her gun. There's no one else here. No movement, no inexplicable presence, no other people. No sign of a Shinigami. No sign of anything.

"Get shot, I suppose," L replies. "You seem to have no function other than to kill, Kiyomi Takada."

"Shut up," she barks. "I'm doing the _right_ thing. If you had half a brain you'd join me."

"Mindless slaughter of thousands of humans based on the possibility that they _might_ be criminals isn't really my thing," L tells her.

_What the fuck am I doing?_

It doesn't matter. This is the end. He's gotten Naomi killed, he can't live with himself, anyway.

"Idiot," Takada snarls. "You're just another brainwashed sheep. You're stupid. You're not even carrying any _weapons_."

"Am I not?" L asks, pleasantly.

He isn't. He hasn't come here to fight her. He's just come here to observe.

Takada rolls her eyes.

"Take off the mask," she commands.

L tilts his head.

"I beg your pard-"

"Take it off, or I'll shoot you!" she yells.

Yelling will attract attention, won't it? When will this end? How does it end?

What form has the god of hell?

"Then, I would choose death, rather than being controlled by _you_," L informs her. "I know what you can do with my name, Miss Takada."

She can't possibly know that he has exactly the same weapon as she, right here under his shirt.

It doesn't matter. He won't use it. He's actually kind of convinced that he's going to die, right here, right now.

A well-aimed bullet means a fast death. There are certainly worse ways to go. At least this time he won't spend his final moments in the arms of the most evil man in the world.

"Fine," Takada tells him. "You can be a warning to all your colleagues. Do not _mess_ with Kira."

"You could just run away," L suggests. "You don't have to kill, you know. We offered to help you. We…we _tried_."

No. Not yet. Too soon. Hold it in.

Takada's face contorts into an insane smile.

"So, you _do_ work for L. Lovely. This can be two more nails in his coffin, then."

He doesn't want to feel. It's going to be so bad when he starts feeling again. He's going to wish he were dead, anyway. And he's eighty-five percent certain he's the one who Takada needs to kill.

L checks the street outside the alley, where Takada cannot see. Two police cars pull silently into view.

_Witnesses_.

_Why are they here? No one knows I'm here. No one knows Takada is here, except Rae._

"I'd love to stay here and argue with you, but I have places to go," Takada lies.

She points the gun right at his head, between his good eye and his dead eye. It will only take one shot, then. Good. L doesn't really want to die the way Mail died in the first world.

Someone else is on the road, not in uniform. Running towards him. No, that isn't right. Running _away_ from the police. Grianna Jones. Nobody is going to get to them in time, though.

_If I die, will I get to see the god of hell?_

_No, that's ridiculous, I didn't see him last time I died._

_Unless it happened, and then my memory was altered._

L does not move. One of the police officers shouts something and points in his general direction. They won't get to him in time, but they'll be close enough to bear witness. They'll have Kiyomi Takada on a plate. First-degree murder.

He hopes they throw away the key.

"L, what the _fuck_ are you doing?" Rae says, materialising beside him.

And L jolts, overwhelmed with just seeing his Shinigami again. He feels like he's been pushed off a building, tumbling and terrified.

_I don't want to die! I want to be with you!_

Takada gets her finger on the trigger before L can react, before L can do anything, and the sound of gunshot is deafening, drowning out everything else.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ I know I abuse the 'cliffhanger ending' trope. I'm working on it, I swear.

+ estimated time of next update is probably seven to ten days. presuming my 'flu doesn't relapse again.

+ thank you for reading.


	45. Hell

notes/warnings

+ swearing. but nothing worse than the previous chapter.

+ general unpleasantness, grieving, etcetera.

+ more dicking around with the actual canon rules of the death note.

+ general poor writing.

* * *

**Hell**

For a second, nobody moves. L feels nothing. No pain. No weakness.

_What?_

"Oh no," Takada rasps, and both the gun and the note tumble to the pavement. She clutches at her side with both hands, and L suddenly realises that there is blood seeping insidiously through her expensive coat.

_Oh. _

Rae's enormous hand closes tremulously over L's shoulder, and L feels like he might fall apart, and start yelling and crying right there in the alleyway. And then Takada collapses, like a tower of cards, like nothing at all, choking and wide-eyed and horrified.

And as she falls, L sees his own protégé standing a few feet behind her.

"Mail," he calls, out loud, almost involuntarily.

He takes a few steps forwards, mostly to get out of Rae's grip. Mail doesn't even look at him. His eyes are fixed on Takada's body with a terrifying sort of intensity. He looks alive, actually, properly alive. Like he might not be thinking of Mello at all. Mail levels the gun at Takada's head.

"No," L orders croakily. "M. M. That's enough."

And then the police are upon them, pouring between L and Takada and Mail like so many ants. They form a wide, cautious circle around Takada. One of them grabs L and tugs him backwards. Another two grab Mail under the arms, effectively.

"No!" Mail yells, desperately. "Not yet!"

"Did you shoot this woman?" someone demands

L fishes his own fake identification card out of his pocket.

"I am agent Tony Base," he manages. "This is my colleague, Robert Wilson. We both work for L. The suspect threatened me at gunpoint. Wilson had no choice but to shoot her."

The redheaded officer closest to him nods once.

"These two are with L," she announces, loudly. "They're clear. Agent Base, I am Constable Wicks. Are you harmed?"

L shakes his head.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Listen, this woman dropped a notebook. I need you to give it to me, straight away. L considers it to be vital evidence."

Wicks turns to look at Takada's struggling, broken form, and then briefly scans the rest of the area.

"What notebook?" she asks, sounding puzzled.

* * *

_No!_

_No, I'm not ready. No!_

Takada stares at the space where her death note had been, just a few seconds ago.

"Fuck you, Ryuk," she rasps, bitterly. It hurts to talk. Everything hurts. She's bleeding. Her _own fucking blood_ is all over her arms, and just the thought is enough to make her feel woozy.

If she dies, who will save Light?

She can't die. She's a _goddess_, she can't die! This isn't even a useful death.

And the man who shot her is no one. A maniac. Some mentally-ill agent of L's with a gun and barely enough brain cells to put his shoes on in the morning. And he keeps raving about how he's going to shoot her _again_.

Kira will see to him. Murderers ought to be punished. Attempted murderers, too. Anyone who ever _thinks_ about committing a crime, really. This world could be so beautiful, if they could just get rid of the _filth._

_Light, I need you now._

And the stupid police goons don't help her. One of them kicks the gun out of her reach, and then edges away as soon as possible. They're treating her like she's still powerful. Takada manages a tiny, sick little smile.

She's failed him. Again.

_Light, where ARE you?_

And L's other fucking agent is acting like he's the boss of everything, ordering people around and declaring…declaring…

Something.

The world is starting to fade around the edges. Her vision is starting to go. She can't…she can't _think_. No, no, no! She can't think.

She's not sure how much time passes while she lies crumpled and pain-riddled on the pavement, but eventually someone picks her up and carries her towards an ambulance, and she's _still_ not dead.

She's not dead.

She's _not dead_.

Somehow, everything will be okay.

* * *

There's only one paramedic on the scene, which strikes L as strange, because he knows they are required by law to work in pairs. But then he has to convince a couple of detective constables that Mail is only screaming because he has an unusual case of Tourette's Syndrome, and _not_ because he's in a murderous rage. And then he has to answer approximately far too many questions about why he was here in the first place. And _then_ someone shows up with a cocky-looking Grianna in handcuffs. And the whole time, L has to keep coming up with creative excuses to shove Rae's hand away from his back and his head and the hem of his shirt. So L transiently forgets about the paramedic. He can only focus on one thing at once.

He's practically useless, right now.

"Jones," he says, softly. "I don't understand you at all."

Grianna smiles at him, and the gesture is both malevolent and intensely familiar. L can't think why. Wedy never smiled like that.

"I do what I do," Grianna tells him. "And you won't stop me, agent. No one can stop me. I have more money than L himself, and I play _very carefully_."

"I know your history," L tells her. "Often charged, never sentenced. What I don't understand is _why_. What do you gain from this?"

Rae touches his hip, and L takes an abrupt step sideways.

"Did you do that on purpose?" the Shingami demands. "Don't you run away from _me_."

But L can't do this. Can't handle this. Can't even _look_ at Rae.

"You've obviously never lost anyone to hell, old man," Grianna says derisively.

L boggles. Hell?

_What….what is this about?_

Whatever it is, he might need a little more privacy. These officers have been carefully-selected to be trustworthy and yet not annoyingly independent, and they wouldn't do anything to impede L's supposed henchmen, but some things shouldn't be available for public consumption.

L turns to the officer currently restraining Grianna.

"Please leave us for a moment, officer..."

"Maxwell. Jeremy Maxwell," the man supplies.

_So generous in giving out your full name_, L thinks. _Don't you realise who we were fighting?_

"Please leave us for a moment, Officer Maxwell. This woman is an important witness. L needs her statement immediately."

"L has some strange bloody orders," Maxwell grunts, but he reluctantly releases Grianna and moves away.

Grianna could theoretically run, but she's still handcuffed and the whole area is surrounded. And L…L wants to know what she knows.

"Hell?" he echoes, quietly.

Rae reaches for his wrist, and L folds both arms firmly and uncomfortably over his chest.

_No!_

"There is something that controls hell," Grianna says fiercely. "Something intelligent. Something that can be reasoned with. A death god told me so."

_What…who is this woman?_

_She's encountered a Shinigami. Then, she has possibly also encountered a death note._

"You've seen-"

"Yes, a few years ago, now," Grianna interrupts, sounding mildly irritated. "The notebook was useless to me, but I still have the eyes. I also learned this; those who are in hell who appear in the real world _must_ be here to be tested."

L tilts his head, almost completely forgetting Naomi and Mail and Rae and the entire, awful situation, for just a moment.

"You seek those who are being tested," he surmises.

"Smart, aren't you," Grianna comments, and she sounds so much like Wedy that it makes L ache. "I seek the god of hell."

"If she really does have the eyes, then she's already recognised that you are also the owner of a death note," Rae points out.

Of course. They have something in common. Is that why Grianna is telling him so many things, so easily?

Well then. It can't hurt.

"I seek that too," L whispers. "I…I want to get someone back."

"The hell-god is supposed to show up to the scene of every test, whether passed or failed," she says, firmly. "He or she _must_ be here. Somewhere."

L regards Grianna with an odd feeling of kinship. He feels strangely validated. Someone else knows about the god of hell.

It's not just him.

It's _not_ just him.

"She's as paranoid as you are," Rae comments, and L diligently ignores it.

"Do you have any idea what form this god takes?"

"I don't know."

"But surely you must have some sort of shortlist," L reasons. "If what you say is true, then the same person, animal, or object would have appeared at every other test you've seen too, right?"

Grianna raises an eyebrow.

"Does your boss know that you're wasting time chatting with suspects?" she asks.

"Why are you avoiding the question?" L wonders. He cards a hand through his hair, dislodging Rae's fingers in the process.

It belatedly occurs to him that Rae's reaction time seems to be no better than his own. His Shinigami is becoming damaged. Again.

Grianna sighs.

"I don't know. It's almost like, after a few weeks have passed, I can't really remember the details any more, you know? This thing is powerful. And probably psychic."

"Okay, we've officially established that this woman is crazy," Rae complains. "You need to get somewhere safe, L. You're still out in the open."

"I've met your daughter," L tells Grianna impulsively.

Rae's hand is hovering an inch from his elbow, like Rae is trying to respect his desire not to be touched, and just can't quite help itself.

"Someone's coming over," it warns L. "Keep the conversation safe."

Grianna looks stricken.

"She thinks very little of me, my daughter," she says, sardonically. "What's she like, now?"

"Amazing," L replies.

"Excuse me, sir," someone drawls from right behind them. "I don't mean t'interrupt."

It's the paramedic. He's scruffy and blonde, and his uniform is white. L imagines it must be impossible to keep clean for any length of time.

"What is it?"

"I'm not s'posed to announce this officially," he says loudly, "but that woman has passed away. Thought it might mean something to this here investigation."

L hesitates.

"Takada is dead?" he clarifies, carefully.

"Yup. Blood loss from the gunshot wound. I still need to take the body to the hospital, though," the paramedic points out. He has odd-coloured eyes, and he isn't wearing a nametag.

"I understand," L tells him. "Thank you."

"Dead," Grianna spits. "Ha. Serves her right. I don't like people who take it upon themselves to punish others."

"Dead," Mail calls, incredulously. "Dead? _Dead. _I _killed_ her?"

He sounds…he sounds fucking ecstatic. L can't handle this. He can't handle anything. Grianna is no use to him if her memory isn't intact.

"Best of luck with the judicial system, Jones," he tells her. "I have things to do."

"Wait," Grianna says, quickly. "Wait. Tell L I said 'thanks'. Please."

_Thanks?_

"Thanks for what?"

"That's the whole message," Grianna confirms. "Just…thank you. He might know what I'm talking about."

_I seriously doubt that_, L thinks. He feels strange. Like there's something he ought to be noticing. The officers are milling around like they've got nothing to do. The paramedic is preparing to leave. Rae is by his side. Grianna's story makes sense.

What…what's wrong, then? What isn't right? A psychic is only given away by the mistakes that he makes. And L can feel that horrid weight on his mind. But it's not as if _L_ has seen any of these people before. Unless he counts the paramedic vaguely resembling the woman in the library.

_Oh, dear god. It can't be_.

L turns on his heel and heads towards the ambulance.

"Don't fucking go anywhere," Rae demands. "Can't you stay still for five seconds? Where are you _going_?"

"Stop," L hollers, and the exertion makes his throat ache. "You. Paramedic! Stop. _Stop_!"

"L, seriously, where are you going?"

"To the ambulance," L mutters. "Leave me alone."

"Ambulance?" Rae asks, curiously. "Oh, right. There was ambulance here, a few seconds ago, wasn't there? I guess it's gone now."

The only vehicles in the entire street are police cars.

L sinks to his knees.

* * *

Naomi doesn't look any different. She could be resting. She could be asleep. Her skin is still warm, and her eyes are closed. And Raye wants to take this moment, and suspend it in forever. That her body might never change. That he might never have to leave her.

Raye gets down on the hard, dirty floor with her and presses his face into her shoulder. She cannot speak. She can never tell him why she confessed to Takada. She can never tell him whether or not she'd have chosen him over L, in the end. She can never tell him she loves him.

There are people everywhere, and none of them stop. Even when the bullet-noises and the shouting and the pandemonium finally ceases, nobody stops. Nobody cares that Naomi is dead. Nobody even _notices_ that this incredible, beautiful person has…has fallen.

Naomi is lost. Gone forever.

_No!_

It's not fair. Nothing is fair. Raye puts one hand on the side of Naomi's face and howls into the sleeve of her shirt.

This will never be okay. This will never, _god_, he feels like he's lost a fucking arm. He feels like he's died, like there is no life left in the world. He feels alone. No one cared about him, but her. What will he do without her?

What will she do without him? Will she do anything? Is she anywhere at all?

She believed in the third world so much, but Raye doesn't. He can't. A second chance was miracle enough. A third is too much to hope for.

What if she's in heaven, now? Raye will never make it to heaven. Naomi was everything that was good about him. Without her he's just an ordinary guy with a talent for firearms and an unnatural fear of trains. She made everything exceptional. She made everything sparkle.

There were _things_. Things he wanted to say to her. Not 'I love you', or 'I will wait for you forever'. Little things. Stupid things. He wanted to hear her opinion on developments between their stupid _fucking_ boss and his skeleton friend. He wanted to tell her about this recipe he found for chilli chicken with lime. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted.

Past tense.

Wanted.

She was alive. An hour ago, she was _alive_. They have recordings. She was talking to people. Raye checks her pulse, over and over and over, in the hope that he might feel _something_ there.

He'll stay here forever, then. He'll stay here with her. Eventually, he'll die too, and then everything will be okay.

Raye is frightened of death. He's always frightened. He can't. He _can't_. He's failing her, right now, right at the very end.

He never even knew why she got sick. He had _questions_. She can't just stop, he needs time. He ought to have been warned, at the very least. He could have made the most of the time they had, instead of L…

Instead of L _getting everything_.

Eventually, after what might have been hours, Raye senses that some of the policemen - or criminals or whoever the fuck is left in the building – have stopped, right next to his head.

"Raye," one of them says.

"L," Raye says, packing as much loathing as he possibly can into that single syllable. "You did this."

"She is dead, Raye," L says distantly, like it's nothing. Like he could get a thousand employees just like Naomi with no problem at all. "You need to come back to the base."

"No," Raye says quietly. Once he gets up, that's it. He'll forget the way she smells. He'll forget how she feels. He'll become…

He'll become.

He's too scared to die.

Raye pulls Naomi close, one last time. Ten more minutes, and then he's going to get up and punch L repeatedly in the fucking stomach, and make _him_ feel this pain, too. And maybe that will be enough that Raye will finally be able to breathe again.

* * *

"Ugh, what's happening?" Takada asks, drowsily. "Where am I?"

She's not in pain any more. She can't really feel much at all. They must have given her some good drugs.

Light. She needs to get back to Light. He needs her.

Her surroundings slowly come into focus. She seems to be in a hospital, somewhere. Everything is white. But she's not restrained, and there don't seem to be any police around.

_What's going on? Have I escaped?_

The paramedic is there, but he's just sitting in a chair next to her bed, watching you.

_Who are you? Did Light send you?_

_Could it be that he's been looking after me, all along?_

"Kiyomi Takada?" he asks, and his voice is neither soft nor kind.

"Yes?" she hazards.

The man puts one hand against her jaw.

"I'm so sorry," he tells her. "But you have to stay."

The words sound important, somehow. Drastic. Like this is some horrible place she'll never get out of. But that's insane. She's not _trapped_. She's just in a hospital. In England. In the real world.

_Isn't she?_

The man takes a step backwards, closer to the flickering fluorescent light, and suddenly Takada can see his face. She can see that he is Big Jason.

She doesn't have the energy left to scream.

* * *

Raye Penber hits L twice, hard enough to leave marks, painful enough to make him nauseous. L doesn't try to defend himself.

He deserves this.

And then Rae shows up, and pins Raye against the wall, and L is struck by how slow and heavy his Shinigami's movements have become.

_So debilitated._

No, no! He didn't want this. Naomi is dead, his team is falling apart, and Rae is broken.

Everything is broken.

He is…

Not yet. He can't collapse yet.

"You are disgusting!" Raye yells at him, damningly. "The way you use people, you're worse than _Light_!"

L doesn't shudder, doesn't flinch. He doesn't have the right to be upset.

_I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not._

_Please, no. Anything but that._

He grinds his teeth, and pushes the panic away. He is L. He needs to be strong. He turns to Mail, who is inconceivably functional right now.

"Please drive us home, now."

"Sure," Mail says, brightly. "Uh. _All_ of us?"

He jerks his head in the general direction of Naomi's body, and L's heart sinks. This isn't the same as when Matsuda died. The world is a different place, filled with enemies and monsters and hell-gods and various versions of Kira. As painful as it might be, Naomi needs to come with them to headquarters.

"Yes, her too," he says, softly. "Raye. Raye, help me carry her, please."

Raye doesn't answer. Instead, he collapses against the wall, shaking, and doesn't move for a solid minute.

His eyes are rimmed red, and L still cannot deal with this.

_Don't, don't, don't._

* * *

_I did it._

_I did it!_

_I actually, actually DID something!_

It takes them, like, twenty fucking minutes to get Naomi up the stairs. Raye looks like he'd rather throw himself upon the floor and start kicking and screaming. L looks like he's dead inside.

And Rae just looks at L.

Whatever. Nobody has ever shown Mail much sympathy in his grief, and _he's_ not about to let their bad moods bring him down.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Raye says, faintly. "I can't believe we're…we're treating her like _luggage_."

_I did it, doll. I sent her back to hell. _

He'd never, ever, in a thousand million years, dreamed that he'd actually be able to _do_ something for Mello. Not with Mello so far away, in a place he can never access. Not after Mello deliberately tried to leave him behind forever. Not after the very first day he met Mello, back at Wammy's, and Mello was _perfect_ and beautiful and fiery and smart, and he was just some slob with too many games and unnecessary eyewear.

But he _killed _Takada. He put a bullet through her.

"I am sorry," L tells Raye, and there's a shudder in his voice that belies his calm expression.

He's going to fracture all over the place. Not now, maybe not even today, but soon. Mail has never really understood L. They've never been much comfort to each other.

Actually, this is the most thought Mail has put into anyone who wasn't Mello since he died. Fuckin' hell.

They finally, finally make it to the top of the stairs. Raye is holding as much of his late wife as he possibly can, like he's trying to physically wrestle her off of L.

Naomi. Her name is Naomi. And Raye is far too late.

"L," the Shinigami says, placing one hand on top of L's head. "There is something else you should know. Takada tried to-"

"Get _off_ of me," L snarls, through gritted teeth. "I should not have to tell you more than once."

Oh yeah, this is going to be fucking spectacular. This is going to be like when Matsuda died.

But Raye. That man. _Raye_. He's going to take it even worse. He's going to have to deal with this _forever_. Mail knows his fate, all too well.

Maybe he should have let Raye shoot Takada.

"And _you_ gave yourself up to be killed, you utter, utter _bastard_," Rae hisses, getting angry just as quickly. "That was exactly what Naomi was trying to _stop_!"

"Can you all just do as I ask, for _five minutes_?" L demands. "Mail. Open the door."

"Yeah," Raye says, voice low and sickly and venomous. "It must be really hard for you, L, having people who care about you. That must really _suck_!"

L gapes at him, and Mail can see the struggle to keep himself together. Mail can read it right off his face.

L's not as good at hiding as he used to be. He's not as good at _anything_ as he used to be.

"I don't care about him," Rae says, instantly, smoothly.

It's obviously thought about this before. It's obviously very good at denying this, too. Practiced, even.

_The two of you might even be interesting, one day_, Mail thinks.

And fuck, what is he _doing_? Mello is supposed to be his universe. If _he_ doesn't remember, doesn't grieve, doesn't care. If he stops thinking about it, for even a few seconds, then no one will be remembering Mello at all.

_God knows you deserve better than that, doll. You deserve better than everything._

_I'm sorry._

But he did it. He did it for _Mello_. Right now, here, today, stuffing Naomi's body into the back seat of a filthy car, he feels okay.

* * *

That's…

That's twice now. That's two of them. Naomi commented, before she died, before she even came here, and now Raye.

It's not true.

It's not _true_, and like Naomi can talk, _anyway_. She's been head-over-heels for L the moment she met him, even in the very beginning.

And it's not the same. It's _not_.

_The difference is…_

He almost died. Might have gone to hell. Might have been lost forever.

_The difference is that I just want to use him._

No. More than that. L said things. L _said_ things, and Naomi would roll over in her not-yet-dug grave if she had heard them. Matsuda would bawl his fucking eyes out, and he'd deserve it. Dear, _dear_ Rem would be broken.

_The difference is that he is mine._

_He likes me. _

_He said it. Heart of fucking stone, emotional capability of a three-year-old, and he STILL had to say it_.

And he's being a dick about it now, sure, but he's _upset_. And selfish, because he nearly goddamn got goddamned _killed_, and he hadn't even…

It's hard to move quickly. It's hard to fly. It's hard to see the names over people's heads, dipping in and out of focus like a possessed camera lens.

_I flew as fast as I could, and I could still barely keep up with Mail._

This is terrifying. This is terrible. This _must be_ all part of the test.

_There's nothing wrong with me. I am perfect. It's just the king, and his stupid, stupid assessments._

_If Mail had gotten there any later. If._

It doesn't bear thinking about.

Because L is a prize, a trophy, a consort. Something to be kept. He's not even a proper detective. He's barely even a real _person_. And people, as a rule, are filth, anyway. So many of them are bad. _So many_.

There will be a lot of work to do, once this is all over.

And it will be glorious.

_Almost died._

And L will witness it, and he'll be _pleased_, because if he's changed this much, he can be changed a little further. He'll use the death note, because he has to, and then he'll understand.

_Almost lost._

_I've never lost anyone before. _

Of course, nobody was ever important for very long before. They came and went. Stepping stones. There's nothing wrong with hurting bad people, because they're already _bad_.

_I can't lose anyone._

L is a bad person too. So it's okay. Everything is okay. And just like that, the names and life-spans become clear and defined. And, _oh, that's right._

So little time. So little time, and everything is going wrong.

L is a bad person, except he does good things, sometimes. Things the world can't live without, like getting rid of his mother, and saving people, and…

So, what? Is he just misguided?

L's lifespan disappears again, and _fuck no, almost died._

_Almost died._

Takada was rotten to the core. She almost killed L. People aren't shades of grey. They're not _like_ that. But L's so fucking contrary, maybe _he_ is.

One thing is for sure. He's not in control any more. And that's. That's good.

Probably.

_Don't ever do that again._

* * *

L sits in the front, with Mail.

Nobody speaks, Mail drives like an ordinary, sane person, and L studiously ignores Raye's ragged breathing.

And Rae. Staring at the back of his head. Staring at him like he's the last thing left on the planet, and _goddamnit, _didn't L _want_ this?

He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve _anyone_. He got Naomi killed and he failed to arrest Takada, he failed to secure the death note, and he failed to even _speak_ to the hell-god.

This case was an absolute disaster.

He didn't save anyone at all.

Not one single person.

"Please find something else to look at, Shinigami," he requests, and his voice cracks on every other syllable.

"Takada used the note to try and make Naomi summon you," Rae says bluntly. "It didn't work. And I'm not sure why."

"Never mind that," Mail growls. "Fuckin' Takada had the same weapon as the first Kira, right? Where is the notebook?"

"It belonged to a god of death, like me," Rae tells him, offhandedly. "He took it back. L, did Naomi have a way of summoning you?"

"Yes," L replies, hesitantly. "But she…she never used it. Not even at the very end."

"You never told me _that_," Rae snaps.

"Bullshit," Raye says, suddenly. "You would never have gone to her, even if she'd called for you."

"I would have gone in a heartbeat," L replies, honestly.

Raye Penber will never, ever believe him.

"I hate you," the Shinigami tells him, darkly. Apparently it is taking his failure to defend himself against Takada as a personal insult.

"He didn't kill your wife!" Raye continues, his voice rapidly getting higher and louder. "He didn't destroy anyone you loved, just to be a hero and solve one more case. He didn't….oh my _god_. I can't believe she's _gone_. I _hate_ you, L. I WISH YOU'D DIED, INSTEAD!"

"SHUT UP!" Rae yells at him.

"I wish that had been the outcome, too," L says softly, staring at the road.

Once they get home, it will be real. There will be no Naomi, leaning over his shoulder, reminding him to be human, kissing him on the cheek. There will be no-one to stop Raye from loathing him. There will be no-one to cut Mail's hair.

There will be an empty space where she used to be, and that space is worse than nothing at all. Not for the first time, L wishes he had the power to erase memories. He could take Raye's pain from him, then.

And Mail's, too. And maybe Rae's-

L feels fingertips against the small of his back. Rae must have put its hand through his seat. And the touch is so light and intimate, and his skin is so sensitive, and he's so _tired_ that L just…just.

L wipes furiously at his good eye, and forces himself to stay focused. Besides, they're approaching the driveway to headquarrters. He can deal with this. For a little while.

"The death note can only kill directly," he whispers. "Could it have predicted my death at Takada's hands, and therefore prevented Naomi from summoning me?"

"Honestly?" Rae says thoughtfully. "I'm not sure. I would have expected that to be too removed a consequence for the death note to foresee."

"Perhaps," L says, reaching behind his own back and stilling Rae's fingers. "But regardless, there is also a more probable reason. Naomi would never have led me to my death. Her treachery is impossible to conceive."

"That depends on whether Naomi ever realized Takada had betrayed her," Rae points out. "If she became completely unaware after having her name written down, then she would have only been summoning you to the building. She would have thought that Takada had renounced Kira, and therefore, that you might have been safe."

"These are important rules for us to know," L says, irritably. "And yet, we are only guessing at them. We ought to know these things, Rae. The fact that neither you nor I know the exact extent to which the note can be used is a terrifying prospect."

"Well, you're the one who was involved in the original Kira case. Wasn't that the time when a lot of different humans set out to test the limits of the notebook? What did _you_ learn?"

_That the thirteen day rule was a lie_, L thinks, bitterly.

"I refuse to believe that you have accepted the powers of your own death note without exploring them, Rae. You're as clever and resourceful as any human I've ever met. But you have a point. If it were possible to use a notebook to have someone summoned to a place where they would be easily killed, Light would have used it against me. And he never did. So we can presume that such a thing is impossible, and therefore, the reason that Naomi died from a heart attack."

"Wait, wait," Rae says, confused. "Are you telling me Light was ever in a position where he could control someone who knew you well enough to successfully summon you – alone – to an unsecured location?"

L throws up his hands in annoyance, and Rae finally, _finally_ stops touching him.

"Fine! What is _your_ estimation, Shinigami? Why do you think she was able to defy the notebook?"

"Will you BOTH SHUT UP?" Raye roars. "ISN'T IT ENOUGH THAT SHE DIED TO SAVE YOU, L? DO YOU HAVE TO QUESTION EVERYTHING?"

"She didn't die to save him," Mail says calmly. "She would have died anyway."

"You shut up, too," Raye snaps. "You're barely even _human_! You're not…I've lost. I've lost _everything_. L_. L_!"

Raye isn't even making sense any more. L knows how he feels. It's easy to be angry. And it's easy to be numb. But eventually, both emotions will fade.

Leaving only acceptance. Only loss. Only a thousand shattered memories, a thousand regrets. Only self-loathing and darkness.

Raye should stay angry as long as he can manage.

Mail brings the car to a stop, and L suddenly realises Watari is right there, standing in the middle of his custom-made, expensive, triple-locked garage.

They're home.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you very much for reading.

+ estimated time of next update: probably about ten days away.


	46. Fault

notes/warnings

+ more tinkering with the death note universe in general.

+ more swearing. also, this is a fairly short chapter.

+ disclaimer: political/religious/moral elements to this fic do not necessarily represent my own views, nor are they specifically intended to cause debate. mostly, I'm interested in different possible interpretations of the rules of the death note and how they might apply.

* * *

**Fault**

Raye lays Naomi out on their bed, gently maneuvering her head onto her favourite pillow. All he can think about is how she can't feel its softness. All he can think about is how _cold_ she must be.

"She hated these shoes," he tells no-one.

The others are milling around, but they don't merit even the tiniest portion of his attention. They aren't important. Even L isn't fucking important. Not now.

It's too late.

They were meant to build a home together. They were meant to have a _life_. Raye wanted a herb garden. He wanted _dogs_. He wanted Naomi to sit at home and write ridiculously long and thoughtful letters to L. He wanted the two of them to get _bored_ and watch bad daytime television and bicker over nothing.

He wanted eternity.

"This isn't even her favourite watch," he says, thickly. "She's not even…_god_. The last time I saw her, I _shot_ at her."

He is a terrible person. The worst. Horrible. Filthy. L makes people filthy. He makes them become like _him_.

"She was a good woman," Watari says, his polite voice jarring Raye from his thoughts.

"She was your _employee_," Raye tells him, bitingly. "You didn't even _know_ her. _None _of you did!"

When he died, Naomi went out and tried to get revenge. She was always stronger than him. Now she is nothing. A fragile, temporary body. She'll decay, and there will be nothing he can do. There will be nothing of her left to look at. She will vanish from the world, just another victim of faux-Kira.

"Wasn't it her second favourite, though?" L asks quietly, examining her wrist as if he has any right to be _near_ her. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. She isn't here, Raye. This isn't her."

"_Fuck you_," Raye says venomously. "This _is_ her. You might have taken everything else away from me, but _this is my wife_!"

"She's somewhere else," L continues blithely. "She's ahead of us, now."

"What if there's nothing?" Raye asks. "What if she can still feel? What if she _knows_ we've given up on her? She's _still here, damnit_! She _has_ to be."

She isn't. He knows she isn't. And L is right. This is an empty shell. She is gone.

And what's worse is she went _without _him. They were supposed to be together. They're soul-mates. They're married. They're not Mail and his fucking unrequited love interest. They aren't _meant_ to be tragic.

Raye climbs on the bed with her. Her skin isn't soft to touch any more. Her hand doesn't mould around his own.

_It's over_.

Raye stares at her face, trying to take in as much as he possibly can. He has to remember _everything_. Every curve, every freckle, every hair.

He must not ever, ever forget.

* * *

Eventually, Watari manages to steer L back outside, away from the others, and into the nearest lockable office. L stands in front of the plush armchair and stares at the steaming teacup on the coffee table.

He does not sit, and he does not drink. He smells fetid. The skin on his face has surpassed 'sallow' and is slowly starting to turn grey, so that the dark bags under his eyes almost blend in.

If Watari had known there were going to be countless afterlives, if he'd _known_ L would never be able to stop, maybe he would never have gotten him started in the first place.

Maybe.

"The Chief of Police is awaiting our report," Watari says briskly. "Do you wish to speak with him directly?"

There's no point in being kind. L doesn't understand kindness. Not when it is directed at him, anyway.

"No," L murmurs, his gaze fixed to some point over Watari's left shoulder. "Please tell him that faux-Kira was killed by one of my men after threatening me. The Chief himself knows about the notebook, please tell him that it was destroyed."

"What?" Rae demands, and Watari isn't quite sure when it entered the room. "That's an outright _lie_."

_You don't know L very well, do you?_ Watari thinks.

"It is what people need to hear," L says, dismissively. "The human public is not ready to know about the existence of your kind, Rae. Watari, the preliminary brief from the officers on site suggest that all of Takada's supporters were taken in for questioning. Based on these facts, please tell the Chief of Police that I am confident that the case is successfully closed."

Watari nods once, almost deferentially.

L turns to Rae with a watery smile.

"That was a lie, too," he points out. "That we were successful. I didn't save anyone at all, and yet, I will claim to be a hero. I am exactly the sort of person you think I am."

Given L's tone, Watari can presume that the Shinigami has a very low – and utterly incorrect – opinion of his morality.

_Can you honestly not get rid of this thing?_ Watari wonders, eyeing Rae with benevolent dislike. _What does it do to you? What does it say when you are frightened and alone?_

L is strong. He's always strong. He was raised to be strong.

It's not okay to abuse someone, just because they're strong.

"I think you should eat something," Rae says, awkwardly. "You don't usually go more than a few hours without food."

Watari doesn't so much as raise an eyebrow, but he notes and logs that comment, too.

_Maybe you're helping him, and maybe you're hindering him. _

_But you had better remember this, Shinigami; L is not alone. _

"No, thank you," L says, grimly. "Watari. What have we missed?"

Ah, yes.

"News of the new Kira became widespread on the third day," Watari replies, dutifully. "Since then, much of the developed world has been gripped by hysteria and fear."

"Were there any riots?" L asks.

"I imagine so, but nothing sufficiently sensational to be broadcast on any of the monitored news networks."

L rubs one toe against the carpet.

"I see. What about the talk shows, and our international contacts? Were there any reports of people having lost loved ones to Kira? Or colleagues, or acquaintances?"

Watari tilts his head.

"I am not sure what you are asking," he admits. "Of course people lost loved ones. Thousands of people were killed. I imagine most of them had family and friends."

"What about court records? Medical records? Tax records? Is there any evidence – anecdotal or otherwise – that any of Takada's victims actually had lives before being killed?"

"Are you seriously telling me you don't think any of those people were _real_?" Rae asks, scathingly.

"I am not certain," L says, slowly. "Roper was real, certainly. But…how could any god let so many people be killed, just to put someone through hell? And Holland's case, too, seemed to fade into nothing once it was over."

He chews on his lip, and for a moment he actually looks like his old self, functional and determined and calm.

Watari thinks that this is probably about the hell-god. Another supernatural being, trying to make L dance in the palm of his hand.

He feels himself grow angry, defensive on L's behalf, but he doesn't say anything at all. It's not his place.

L calls all the shots.

"I suppose it's probably good to check," Rae says, grudgingly.

"Watari, please scour all government databases and media sources for any evidence of the prior existence of any of faux-Kira's victims. Report any findings to me immediately, without delay. I suspect we may be dealing with something similar to a Shinigami, that may also have the ability to alter memory. I do not yet know if it means us any harm."

"Yes, L."

"If my predictions are correct," L continues, "then the public panic should die down almost immediately, and people may soon start acting as if this never happened. Even…even my colleagues may forget."

He's damaged, and he's in mourning, and he's beaten, and he's still going to start making plans against a possibly-omnipotent god.

L is everything Watari wasn't strong enough to be, and damnit, he deserves to be _happy_.

"I understand," Watari asserts. "I will contact the Chief of Police now, and commence researching at once."

* * *

When the others come to take Naomi away, Raye holds her right up until the very last second.

He wants to punch L in the teeth. He wants to fight tooth and nail for another few precious seconds with his wife. But he doesn't.

Naomi wouldn't have wanted that.

He was never meant to be the one left behind.

* * *

"She was sick," Mail comments, leaning against the doorway. "We never found out why she was sick."

"It was Kira, wasn't it?" Raye says, darkly. "It was Takada, inside her head. Sucking the life out of her."

"Naomi was sick for months," L points out. "Takada would have only had control over her after her name was written down."

Raye rounds on him as soon as he speaks, eyes glittering with sheer loathing.

"_You're_ the one who gave them her name. You _sent_ her in there. _You!_"

"Yes," L acquiesces. "It was my fault."

Raye tenses up, as if readying for a fight, and then he sags, curling in on himself like an infant. Not enough energy to follow through with his own rage.

"Why?" he asks, plaintive and loud. "Why did you do it? You…you…_monster_!"

"I think we should split up, now," Mail says, with a strange authority. "This is fuckin' pointless."

"But we still don't know why she died of a heart attack," L murmurs.

He knows Raye is hurting. He knows Raye will never, ever forgive him. And he knows, maybe one day, Raye will shoot him in the chest with a cheap revolver and finally feel okay again, because _that's how much he hates L_.

And that's fine. That is how things out to be. But L can't process right now. This isn't done. It isn't over. Some parts of this case do not make sense.

_A little longer. Just a little longer._

"Unless…"

L turns to his Shinigami. It doesn't usually trail off at the beginning of a sentence. It doesn't usually exhibit any sort of uncertainty at all.

"Unless what?"

"Unless it wasn't the instruction to summon you. Unless it was the word 'suicide' that voided the whole entry."

L props himself up against the wall. He doesn't crouch. He doesn't touch his lips. He doesn't let himself get too comfortable, because he can't.

"Explain," he says, simply.

"'When the cause of an individual's death is either suicide or accident," Rae recites, "if the death leads to the death of more than the intended, the person will die of a heart attack instead'. One of the most basic rules of the notebook."

"I _have_ read the rules, you know," L says irritably. "I still don't see the connection. The form of Naomi's suicide was never specified. There is no way another person could possibly have been reliably and directly killed no matter which avenue she used."

"Avenue," Raye echoes, getting abruptly to his feet. "Avenue. I. I need to."

He runs gracelessly in the direction of the nearest bathroom. L cannot blame him. They are talking about Naomi's death. Naomi _is_ dead.

And he didn't save anyone at all.

And Buzz. Oh god, he'd forgotten about Buzz. Is the other detective going to show up to laugh in his face, to laugh at his failure? Is he going to try and overpower L and steal his identity?

Could he really be Light? Still? After all this time? Despite what happened to Takada?

Maybe.

L thinks he might have preferred meeting Light to this. He would have rather died - by any means necessary - than lose Naomi. Than have to deal with his own, massive, catastrophic failure. Than be this person, here and now. The one who survived by pushing others to their deaths.

_I should have gone to Roper's house._

_I should have gone to Roper's house._

_I should have gone in there myself._

He did this. He is wholly responsible.

"Is it possible that no matter how Naomi killed herself, she would have killed Takada first?" Mail asks. "I mean, Naomi was super strong. And she would have been _really _fuckin' angry. I shot Takada, by the way. I _shot_ her."

L wants to tell him to shut up, but he realises that murdering Takada might be the most important thing Mail has ever done in his entire life.

_Is this what Raye has to look forward to? Is he just going to become like you?_

"No. I am confident that force of emotion alone does not allow one to override the notebook."

"What if Naomi _not_ killing Takada is 'impossible to think of', huh?" Mail continues, and he's _grinning_. Maniacally. In any other situation, L would be happy for him.

"The death note doesn't work that way," Rae snaps. "It doesn't care how much someone _wants_ something. But."

"But," L prompts.

"Well, thinking back, I've killed proportionately very few people by anything more complicated than a heart attack," Rae muses. "And only half of those people again would have been female. I wouldn't…I wouldn't necessarily have noticed if…"

L glowers at his Shinigami. It seems to be struggling for words, and he's not sure how much more of this he can take.

_Just a little longer. Not yet. Not yet. _

"I'm not actually sure what the death note classifies as a 'person'," Rae finishes lamely. "Um. I mean, when it comes down to it. In terms of, like, age. And things."

L is suddenly overcome with a wave of horror. Of nausea. Of dank, horrifying possibility.

"Not that," he breathes. "Anything but that."

"Huh?" Mail asks. "What are you….oh. Shit."

L tugs his phone from his pocket and dials Watari. It takes him five attempts to get the number right.

"I need you to check something for me," he says, shakily. "_Now_."

* * *

Whew. It's finally over. Ryuk is never, _ever_ taking another order ever again. Honestly, some of that woman's little fabricated scenarios go on for a _ridiculously_ long time. And he has better things to do.

But it's not as though this hasn't been useful. It's not as though he hasn't learned anything.

Ryuk steps across the threshold. The king doesn't even bother to look around.

"What is it?" he asks, coldly. His voice echoes around him, even though there are no walls, and nothing but flat, dead land for miles in every direction.

"Er…I had a question. About the queen," Ryuk replies, faltering a little.

He doesn't _like_ dealing with the king. He always winds up feeling really, _really_ small. And kind of hungry. But he always feels hungry, so that might be unrelated.

"I'm sure you do, but I am not inclined to entertain fools today," the king rumbles. He taps his bejeweled claws against the side of his head, rhythmic and impatient.

Oh god. Ryuk hates it when he gets _upset_.

"Uh, should I come back tomorrow?"

He really wants to get back to Emma. She's…well, she's special. She's a special human. No one has ever really cared about what _he_ wants before.

The king finally meets his gaze. Stares at him with massive, empty, jet-black eyes. Sometimes Ryuk feels like those eyes can pierce right through his soul. And Ryuk doesn't even _have_ a soul.

"Spit it out," the king demands. The tiny pebbles that litter the ground seem to vibrate with every syllable he speaks. "I would rather not see you again for a _long_ time."

"She…she made a mistake, today," Ryuk blurts out. "I've just never seen her make one before. That's all."

The king snorts dismissively.

"She is a Shinigami, still. She has the right to shorten the lives of humans whenever she wants."

"But she doesn't _need_ them, right?" Ryuk probes. "Kai was telling me that she hasn't killed in millions of years. What does she live off?"

"She has been around far longer than you or I," the king tells him, with something like amusement. "In a way, she has become her note. And it has become her. She is not the same as us."

"She has become her…what does that even _mean?_"

The king smiles at him, slow and liquid and malevolent.

"Run along, Ryuk," he commands. "This conversation is over."

* * *

L feels the clarity slowly return to his mind. The signs of the hell-god's mind control are even more obvious now that he's looking for them.

He made mistakes. He _asked_ someone – a randomly-selected police officer, practically just a _passer-by_ – to hand him the notebook. If Takada's Shinigami had not claimed the note at precisely that moment, then Constable Wicks would have seen him, for certain. And then she would have panicked. And then he would have suddenly been explaining killer notebooks and gods and hell to a huge group of angry, disbelieving police officers.

He might have wound up in jail. And all those men and women might never have felt safe again.

Grief or no, L never should have made a mistake like that. But he recalls, now, how muzzy he felt. How nothing around him seemed to be real, how he was focused only on Naomi and his own guilt.

The hell-god can get him when he's vulnerable, it seems. Weigh down his mind. Change him, and make him stupid. It's like the way Rae was able to torment him when he was inebriated.

_Only._

_Rae's hands_.

"L, are you okay?" Mail asks, suddenly. "You're just staring into space."

L stares at him balefully.

_Am I okay?_

_Am I okay?_

_Do you honestly not understand what happened out there, today?_

_Do you not care about ANYONE except him?_

_After all Naomi's done for you, you ungrateful…_

"Of course he's not okay," Rae snarls. "Leave him alone, for pity's fucking sake."

"I fuckin' know that," Mail says, maybe a little awkwardly. "I was just worried it was something else."

"Please mind your own business, Mail," L says, and his throat feels scratchy and disused.

It isn't fair to get angry at Mail. Or at Rae, or at Takada, or even at Light. And he _wants_ to be angry at Light. All the time.

But this, this is _his_ fault. L's fault. Entirely.

Now that he thinks back, there are other things, too. Takada was sometimes completely under-funded, and at other times seemed to be able to afford almost luxuriously cutting-edge technology, with no financial explanation at all.

Strange. The Gorgon case was much better put-together than this one. Is the god of hell losing his touch? Her touch? Are the hells becoming shabby and incongruent?

What does that mean? Mello might come back? Light might come back?

Light might already be here.

No. Grianna said that those who came to the real world always did so to be _tested_. The test does not necessarily mimic the hell. So it is only during the testing stage that people might break free.

Grianna. Was she even real? Was _anyone_ associated with Kiyomi Takada real? L supposes he'll find out in a few months time, depending on whether everyone around him forgets about this case completely.

Rae touches his sleeve, ever so gently, ever so briefly. L sort of wants to cling to it.

"Watari left cake," it says, simply. "You should eat."

"I do not need cake. Please mind your own business too, Rae," he pleads, quietly.

"Did you miss the part four years ago where I said you were stuck with me?" Rae asks, angrily. "You don't get to just send me away because you feel like it, you know."

L cannot do anything with that declaration right now, but he files it away in his own mind. Because if he ever, _ever_ feels happy again, even just for a moment, he's going to want to remember _that_.

_I wish you would never ever leave me._

_But that's selfish, isn't it?_

He's not selfish. He's not Light. And right now, Rae is just irritating. Just a thorn in his side.

"Do what you want," L tells it, stolidly. "But I will ignore you."

Rae snorts.

"You haven't slept in weeks and you haven't eaten anything all day," it points out. "What is your brain running on, exactly? Pure stupidity?"

_Oh. Banter._

"Don't," L whispers. "Don't. I can't. Not right now."

Rae looks him right in the eye, and that alone is almost too much to bear.

"Not right now," it agrees, reluctantly. "But soon."

L nods, limply. That is all he can hope for. Rae's eyes are the colour of mud, the colour of the expensive wooden coffee table. Rae is so damaged L isn't sure if it will ever be whole again.

And here he is, stewing in his own misery, completely self-centered. _Worse_ than Light.

Raye Penber appears in the doorway. His face is pale and streaky and puffy from crying. He looks dreadful.

"I don't even know what to do," he says, sounding helpless and horribly self-deprecating. "I don't even know. I don't."

"Come in," Mail tells him. "Sit here. We're not quite done yet."

In any other situation, L would have reprimanded him for doling out orders. But then, in any other situation, Mail wouldn't be giving orders in the first place. L needs a stand-in, and Raye needs direct instruction. Mail is doing well.

Raye collapses in one of the armchairs, and buries his face in his hands.

L checks his watch. It's been fifteen minutes. He wishes Watari would hurry up and get back to him.

Not knowing is worse than knowing.

Or maybe…maybe not. But Raye ought to know. If it kills him, he still has a right to know.

L gazes around the room, searching for a distraction. Something. Anything. A few more moments of not having to think about the day's events.

This office was the main briefing room. Back when they were a group. When they had Naomi, and Matsuda, and Wedy.

And god, _Wedy_. Marvin was right to accuse him of not caring about her. He was so debilitated by Matsuda's death that he barely gave her a second thought. And she deserved better than that.

She might have been a criminal, but she was somewhat loyal to him. They had a history dating back long before the original Kira case. Hell, the first time she'd agreed to work for L he hadn't even entered puberty. And he'd admired her talents so much that he'd drawn up a conditional ongoing contract, then and there. After a few cases, they even had their own code to recognise each other. She'd say '_what's a boy like you doing in a dump like this?'_. And L would say '_looking for trouble'_. Simple, ordinary conversation, but it meant something. Of course, in the end, he developed a flair for seeing through her expert disguises, and she his.

Perhaps there was a time that he even considered taking her on, as his sole partner, his equal. It's probably a good thing he never did. No single person could handle him all on their own. No-one could ever keep up with him. When he finally decided he couldn't do this alone, he employed a whole team. It was better that way.

It was meant to prevent him from getting attached.

Now L is attached to all of them. Every last one. From the grieving psychopaths to the injured skeletons. Even the little girls he barely knows. And the gods of death who were technically responsible for killing him. All of them.

He's hopeless. He's too old for this. He's too brittle.

He didn't save anyone at all. And there are no more opportunities, now. The case is closed. The hell-god has been and gone. L failed, pure and simple.

When Watari knocks on the door, L actually flinches.

"Come in," he says, and he hates the audible tremor in his voice. Everyone knows. Everyone knows he isn't coping.

Isn't going to cope.

_Soon_.

Watari steps into the room. He never makes any noise when he walks, despite his heavy shoes. And he never makes small talk, either. He always gets right to the point.

He looks right at L, and nods. Once.

Affirmative.

_No no no no no!_

L's mind spirals deeper into chaos, into nothingness. He's ruined everything. He's destroyed everyone. He's _done this_.

"You confirmed it?" he asks, unnecessarily. Watari doesn't waste words or gestures.

Perhaps it's time Watari replaced him. Succeeded him. Anyone else might do a better job.

"Yes, L."

"Fuuuuck," Mail says, eloquently.

L closes his eye. In his mind, he hears the bells. One more time. One more life. Sort of.

"I understand."

"What?" Raye growls. "What are you all talking about?"

This is maybe the worst thing L has ever had to do. He kind of wants to vomit. He wants to run away.

"Naomi," he says, in a rush, because he has to _get it over with_. "Naomi was-"

Rae flicks its thumb down the curve of his spine, and L chokes to a stop, momentarily rendered mute.

_Oh god_.

"Your wife wasn't sick," it tells Raye, sounding as clinical and unconcerned as Watari himself. "She was pregnant. Which is also possibly why the note couldn't control her."

"I'm sorry," L mumbles, the words spilling pointlessly into the ensuing silence. "I am so, so, sorry."

* * *

Raye looks from L to Mail to the fucking skeleton and back to L, in utter incomprehension.

"What are you talking about?" he says, once more. "What do you _mean_?"

Naomi is dead, and none of these…these _fuckwits_ have a right to be talking about her at all. Especially when they're _wrong_.

"I'm pretty sure there's only one meaning assigned to that word," Rae informs him. "Pregnant. She was-"

"Shut up!" Raye yells, quickly. "No she wasn't!"

_Wrong, wrong, wrong!_

"This isn't fucking debatable," Rae says, obnoxiously.

"I'm afraid it is true," Watari intones.

"Shut up, _old man_," Raye howls. "You don't know anything! She can't have been pregnant, because if she was, then she would never have _gone_. She would have stayed here and she'd still be alive and we'd be together and _everything would be fine!_"

They're all fucking _staring_ at him and L looks the most miserable that Raye has ever seen him look and Raye is fucking _glad_.

It's not true.

It's _not_ true.

It can't be true, that he could have come so very, very close to everything he'd ever dreamed of, only to have all of it ripped away. Only to not even _find out_ until it was already too late, because of L. Because of _L._

A child. A part of him. A part of Naomi. L would never have been able to take her away from him, after that.

No.

No.

_No!_

It's bad enough that she's gone. She's gone and it's the end of the world and he cannot even _fathom_ the fact that they might…

If he'd just made her go to a doctor.

If.

Rae presses his hands to the sides of his head and stares at the ceiling.

"What have I done?" he screams. "_What have I done?_"

* * *

L's head sinks, until it is almost between his knees. Raye gets up, clutching the arm of his chair with deathly-white hands.

Raye grieves loudly, and L grieves quietly.

"No," Raye says suddenly, with a sick little grin. "No, it wasn't me. It was you. It was _you_. What have _you_ done?"

He staggers into the middle of the room, and points one finger accusingly at L.

"Yes," L agrees, mournfully. "It was my fault."

"It wasn't your fault, idiot," Rae tells him, sharply.

"You've destroyed _everything_!" Raye rages. "You, and no one else. You killed…you killed…you killed…"

Raye collapses onto the floor, sobbing and clawing at the carpet. The epitome of pitiful.

"That's enough," Mail says, getting to his feet. "The case is closed. None of you are going to make anything better by sitting here fuckin' staring at each other."

He feels like Mello. He can imagine Mello saying these words. He feels okay.

"I don't want to go back to my room," Raye says, desperately. "I want to stay right here. I want to stay with _her_."

"If you like," Mail tells him. "L? Go and do what you need to do."

_Go and break. The world doesn't need you right now_.

The world needs too much of L as it is. Even Mail can see that, and Mail barely cares about him at all.

"Yes," L says, sounding disorientated and confused. "Yes. I should. Go. And."

L struggles to his feet, and drags himself towards the door. He pauses in front of Watari.

"Please look after everything, Watari," he mutters. "Please take…take care of everyone. And everything."

"Fuck _you_," Raye shrieks at L's retreating form. "I hope you suffer! I hope you _bleed_!"

Mail turns to the Shinigami, and then covertly points at L's back.

"Definitely," Rae says, and then follows their boss out of the room.

Mail huffs his greasy hair out of his eyes. For the first time since he shot Takada, he realises that he's craving a smoke. Raye is still hurling poisonous insults in the general direction of the door.

This is going to be really fucking hard.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading.


	47. Here

notes/warnings

+ swearing.

+ grief, and the aftermath of death.

+ some violence.

* * *

**Here**

L walks like he's on his way to the gallows; shoulders hunched high, eye fixed firmly on the floor. He doesn't seem to notice Rae at all, and he certainly doesn't notice when Rae is suddenly yanked into a nearby broom closet.

"Hi," Ryuk chirps. "Please don't hit me again."

Rae glares at the other Shinigami, torn between disbelief and raging dislike.

_You._

_You have some nerve, showing up here, after everything you've done._

_After everything you've done to him! _

Right now, Rae loathes Ryuk with every fibre of its being. But Ryuk has a very useful habit of accidentally revealing important information, and Rae is good at pretending that everything is fine.

"I won't hit you," it replies, with false and vivid cheer. "Why are you here?"

_When I am king, you will pay. _

_You'll pay, and pay, and pay. Just like all the other bad people. Just like everyone who ever hurt him._

Wait, what?

No, it's okay. It's okay for that to be a priority. L is a good person.

_No!_

L can't be a good person, because.

That would mean.

_Cannot ever have been wrong. _

_Cannot._

_Ever._

_Wrong._

_Don't look._

No. No, that wasn't the way it was. Rae hasn't been thinking straight. _Rem_ killed L. Rem killed L all on her own, to save her precious Misa.

_Of course_.

Rae is okay. Everything still makes perfect sense. Everything is fine.

"Mostly, I just came to say goodbye," Ryuk says, with a shrug. "I won't be around here much any more."

"Good," Rae replies, emphatically, and Ryuk seems to crumple a little.

"Look," Ryuk whispers, drawing repulsively closer. "Listen to me. There are other things going on. You need to be careful."

"What do you mean, 'other things'?" Rae queries irritably. "How is that meant to be at all helpful?"

Everyone is so paranoid. It's ridiculous.

_Things will be better, soon. When L writes in the notebook. When I am king_.

"Look, I can't tell you," Ryuk says, wretchedly. "Just…know this: the brown eyes won't stop you from ascending the throne. No matter what anyone says. More importantly, pay attention to what is going on around you. Pay attention to L. _Think_ about things."

Ridiculous.

"Everything is under control," Rae says, dismissively. "You may leave."

"That's what you thought last time," Ryuk ventures. "But last time, things didn't work out so well for you. Don't you remember?"

"Things worked out just fine," Rae says, sweetly. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yes, but…"

"And _you_ clearly have places to be," Rae continues. "I'll see you around."

"Right," Ryuk says. "Er. Right. Bye."

He disappears just as quickly as he arrived, and Rae immediately goes looking for L.

It has more important things to tend to.

* * *

L can feel it coming, rising in his throat like bile. He can feel the anguish and the emptiness. The absence and loss. All of the things that Naomi used to do, wanted to do, should have done.

_Gone._

His fault.

His fault.

The plush bedroom carpet feels alien and bizarre underneath L's feet, and he loses his balance slowly and sinks to his knees. He wants to claw his brain out of his skull, so that he might make this _stop_.

Guilt. Melancholy. Shame.

The emotions roar through his mind, screaming, steamrolling everything else. He is nothing. He is small. He is useless. He did this. He can still feel the weight, the circle of steel around his right wrist, weighing him down, counting out his last days, mocking him.

Somewhere, out there, Light still exists. Maybe Light can even see him, right now.

And maybe L deserves that.

He cannot breathe. He can't move. Naomi and Raye should have had children. They should have had a long and happy life together. He should have protected what they had. He should have defended them. He should never have let Naomi get involved with the Takada case.

He should have gone to Roper's house.

He was selfish. And with his selfishness, he bought Naomi's death. Raye ought to hate him. Everyone ought to hate him.

And Naomi will never come. Naomi won't be there to bring him in, out of the rain. Naomi will never tell him to calm down. Because Naomi can't.

L might never reach her again. He might never reach any of them. And he's so _tired_ and so _angry_. And it's raining - barely, mist drizzling out of the sky - but he's rooted to the spot. Too weary to even punish himself properly.

L hears the door lock into place, and he manages to turn his head just enough to see his Shinigami standing behind him.

_Go away_, he thinks. But he can't even. He can't even talk. Rae doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Except this: he failed Naomi, and he failed everyone. He is a filthy, pathetic human being, and he doesn't deserve anything.

"L? What are you doing."

Rae's voice is just noise. The wind rattling the windows. The siren-pitched screaming inside his head. The bells, tolling over and over.

_I am a monster._

_I am a monster._

_Everything is broken._

_No one was saved_.

_I AM A MONSTER_ _I AM!_

L sees Rae push the hair from his face, but he barely registers the touch. His senses have become dulled. He is imploding on himself, and he deserves it.

_Leave me alone. Don't look at me_.

"It wasn't your fault," Rae says.

Rae is usually so intelligent, but today it is completely wrong. All his fault. He called all of the shots, and he called them wrong. And now Naomi is stolen from them, dead before her time, vanished into some other world.

L won't see her. L will go to hell. He'll burn in hell for this. Light will laugh at him forever.

"Are you just going to kneel there and shake? You aren't even crouching. Come on, this is ridiculous. You can't jungh. Ngh. Mnghngh."

Rae's voice is becoming gibberish, too. The inside of L's head aches. There are no distractions up here. There is nothing.

He didn't save a single person. He deserves this.

* * *

Eventually, Raye gets up and drags himself to his room, mostly to be free from Watari's scrutinising stare.

He yanks the cover back and clambers into his bed. There is still a well-worn divot next to him, where Naomi always used to sleep.

Raye wonders if their child would have looked like her. Would have had her eyes, and her blunt fringe, and her steady hand. He wonders if it would have been strong like her.

_Gone_.

Raye stuffs his fist into his mouth, and screams until his voice gives out.

* * *

Half an hour passes, and L still doesn't move. Doesn't even seem to be able to recognise Rae.

"Okay, that's enough," Rae informs him. "This is counter-productive. You need to sleep."

L gives no response at all. His whole body is trembling terribly, but other than that he seems to be wholly entrenched, hypnotized by his own sadness.

Rae grabs him by the shoulder and pushes him off balance. L hits the floor with a wince-inducing _thump_, and stays there.

And still, he does not speak.

"Cut it _out_!" Rae says, angrily. "This is ridiculous."

L's hands are curled into loose fists. His face is fixed into an empty, vacant expression. It's almost like he's…

He's not dead. He's fine. He's fucking _breathing_, whatever other reflexes might be dulled. He's _fine_.

He's alive.

L's life should never, ever have become important.

"Don't you ignore me," Rae tells him, coldly, leaning over him. "Fucking _listen_. Get up!"

And Rae might as well be mumbling quietly in the corner, for all that L seems to notice.

_You're not dead._

_Stop pretending to be dead._

_Fuck you!_

"LISTEN TO ME, YOU LITTLE FREAK!" Rae yells, right in L's ear.

L doesn't even _blink_.

Rae picks him up in one smooth movement, and _throws_ him against the wall. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to leave a perceptible dent in the plaster. Hard enough to really, _really_ hurt.

L doesn't so much as blink. He doesn't even seem to be _processing_. He sucks in breath after wretched breath, as if on autopilot.

"Fuck you," Rae says, venomously. "You're _beyond_ repair."

And then, the Shinigami turns and walks away. Better to end this before it begins.

_I don't want someone who's broken inside._

_I deserve so much better than that._

* * *

L feels like he's drowning. Like he's being swallowed up in a sea of Naomi and wasted potential and a child he'll never meet.

_My fault_.

The ceiling is blurry, and the contents of his room are almost impossible to make out. His back aches where he connected with the wall. And yet the sensation is detached and remote, like he's just reading about it in a book. Like his mind has been cut free and suspended, so that he might steep in his own unforgivable shortcomings forever.

And Rae. Rae hurts him, and then Rae leaves.

He doesn't deserve anything. He doesn't deserve _any_ of the people around him. He doesn't deserve this luxurious carpet, or his enormous bed, or the money he's earned. He doesn't deserve to eat, or sleep, or feel.

This is good and right.

_Don't go_.

He doesn't. He doesn't _want_ to.

L is freezing cold. He might never be able to move again. His breathing is stuttered and noisy. Rae hates him.

That is right and good.

But he's so alone, in here. He replays Raye's earlier accusations over and over, amplified a thousand times in L's fevered mind. L imagines forcing himself to go to Roper's house. He imagines himself dying to save Naomi, before it became too late.

The only good thing he could have done.

_I am revolting. _

_Don't go_.

It doesn't matter. He is damaged. He is worthless. Rae might as well leave, because he will never be able to give it what it wants. He will stay this way forever, because he should.

Right and good.

Eventually, he'll find the other end of the chain. Eventually, Light will come for him. Eventually. Rae will be long gone. Might have already left. L can't see. He's not sure if he's on the floor or the wall or the ceiling. He's not sure where the rest of his body is.

Maybe he's already dead.

Maybe he's in hell for this.

_Good._

_Rae._

He's not worthy of the life he wanted. And it's only now, when he's barely functional, barely alive, knocked half-dead by sheer force of _grief_, that he can finally recognise what he wanted. Long afternoons and too much cake and winning, and Rae, his partner, always his partner, always _there_. Thirty years time, and still not gone. Still not in the Shinigami realm.

He is repulsive to want such things. He is repulsive to want anything at all, after what he has done. He got Naomi killed, and he got Matsuda killed.

And Rae hates him.

_Good. Right_.

L thinks of how Naomi must have felt, overpowered by the notebook once more. Sick and exhausted and angry and _still fighting_.

She was amazing.

He killed her.

He…yes, he _killed her_. He should never have employed her in the first place. He should never have trusted himself to be around people, to care for people and not destroy them.

But he did. Greedy, greedy asshole. He's got no right to judge anybody. He doesn't deserve his own name, the name his mother gave him, the name that became a symbol that became an enigma and filled people with hope.

They ought to see him, now. Fallen from grace, exactly the way Kira did.

That's what he is, isn't it? Pretending to be righteous, just like Light. Killing people, just like Light. There's nothing to choose between them. Light would probably _like_ him, now, if they met again. L is his mirror image.

Naomi died bravely. He wonders if she cursed him, in the confines of her own, possessed mind. He wonders if she will ever know just what he deprived her of. She ought to rage. She ought to punch him in the face.

_Good. Right_.

He ought to just end his own miserable life. But he can't move.

* * *

Rae stands halfway into the hall, so that L's door passes through its midline.

_You're not good enough for me._

_You're not_.

_What will happen to you, if I leave you now?_

L is still a trophy, even broken. And he still…he _likes_ Rae.

Rae…Rae deserves better. Rae deserves a perfect person, but…

This is just mental illness. It's to be expected. L is weak, and morally ambiguous. He criminalizes Kira along with the world's worst murderers and rapists. He doesn't really _understand_ anything.

Ryuk was wrong. L doesn't have power over anyone at all. People feel obligated to look after him, but he's still pathetic underneath. He's tiny and fragile; no harm to anyone at all. He tries to fight for good, even though he doesn't understand it. He's the sort of person who ought to be protected. And educated.

Rae can have other people. L doesn't need to be its only. But L's face is almost translucent, and his jaw is slack, and he still looks dead.

And Rae goes back to him, because.

L is just a person. And he tries. He does try.

_I did it for people like you_.

* * *

Raye fades in and out of consciousness, disorientated and lost. Naomi haunts his dreams, and her absence punctuates his every waking moment.

He is lonely.

He's lonely, and he wants her. He wants her to come back and hold his hand and _pull him through this_. He wants to… _hell_, he wants to mourn the loss of their child with her. Anything but this. He'd take that option in a heartbeat. He'd sacrifice the one thing that represented _everything_ he had ever wanted, just to have her back.

That makes him a terrible person. How can he even think this way? His daughter. His son. Stolen from him, just like Naomi.

He's not a _terrible_ person. He couldn't choose one over the other. He wouldn't. He _wouldn't_. If he had their child here, he could raise them to understand how wonderful and beautiful and _strong_ Naomi was. He could still build himself a future. He could.

Raye's face is wet, smeared with tears and snot. His eyes feel like they're burning. He keeps trying to force himself to go back to sleep, like maybe if he loses consciousness one more time this will all turn out to be a dream and she'll be _here_.

What is he supposed to do now? What is he supposed to _do?_ It's pointless leaving, but he cannot bear to be around L for another second. All Raye's ever known is crime and criminals and keeping people safe.

And they've saved so many people, Raye and Naomi. They defended so many lives. So many people _owed them_.

And where were they, when Naomi died? Sitting in their perfect, normal homes. Sipping tea. Not doing a damned _thing_, that's for certain.

It's not just L. It's the whole _world_. The whole world conspired to work Naomi into her grave. Raye hates this place. He wants to die and be dead. He wants an end.

He wants her.

He wants_ her_.

There is no substitute. In the whole wide fucking universe, there is no one like her. He'll never be okay again. He might never even leave this _room_ again. He'll rot here, and that might be enough.

Raye rolls over and stares at the window. The night sky looks exactly the same. Time will pass. And Naomi's loss will go largely unnoticed.

And there's someone _sitting on the floor by his fucking bed_.

"Have you no decency at all?" Raye rasps, viciously. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Sitting," Mail replies, primly.

The fucking _asswipe_.

Rae grabs the nearest solid object he can reach, which turns out to be the alarm clock, and launches it at Mail's head.

"Ouch."

"_Go away_," Raye yells. "Leave me in _peace_."

Mail rubs briefly at his temple.

"Nah. Think I'll stay here."

Raye gapes at him. He's never met someone so…so _self absorbed_. So selfish. So _blind_ to the suffering of others.

A perfect miniature L.

"Do you think this is _helping_?" he demands. "Do you really think this is useful?"

"It _is_ helping," Mail replies, with utter certainty.

Raye picks up a vase, but his usually-perfect aim fails him and it smashes harmlessly against the vanity.

Harmless. Useless. Helpless.

That's all he is. Useless fucking husband. Letting his sick, pregnant wife take on a serial killer all on her own.

"I hate you," Raye says spitefully. "Get out, or I swear I'll kill you."

He will. Then L will hurt. L will hurt like he hurts, and L will finally _get it_.

"I lost someone who never loved me back, and who I will, without a doubt, never see again," Mail tells him, almost politely. "The first night, after I realised…L sat with me. Like this. And I lay on my bed and threatened to cut off his head. In gory detail."

"I do not," Raye spits, slowly and deliberately. "Care. About. _You_!"

"What you're feeling right now, I've lived with every day for the past five fuckin' years," Mail tells him, finally sounding angry. "And I'm telling you, it _helps_."

"I'm _no better off than you!_" Raye howls. "I won't ever see her again!"

"Really? You're not going to die so you can be with her?"

Raye doesn't want to face that question. He doesn't want to deal with the one possibility that brings out the worst in him.

"What if there's nothing?" he says, pitifully, staring at his pillow. "What if there's _nothing_?"

Mail would die if there was even the tiniest chance that he'd get to see the love of his life again. He'd disembowel himself right there, with a fucking _chopstick_, fuelled only by hope and desperation.

Raye isn't that sort of man. He wants a chance. He wants his chance. He wants his _fucking family_.

He ought to die. He ought to see her again.

_Naomi wouldn't want me to die._

Or is that just an excuse? Isn't he allowed to be scared? He's lost so much. Isn't he _allowed_?

Mail must be judging him. Mail must think he's selfish. He _isn't_ selfish. Not for this.

Raye pushes his hand along the mattress, and gazes at his wedding ring. Tiny circle of gold. All that remains of what they had.

"How does it help?" he asks, finally. "You being here. I don't feel any better. How does it help?"

Mail sticks an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and rolls it between his lips.

"Stops you from going completely mad," he replies, sagely.

* * *

"I'm still here. Come on. Just snap out of it."

L is cold. He's practically the temperature of the floor. He cannot seem to stop trembling, and he cannot seem to move, and he cannot seem to do anything at all. It's as if he's been paralysed completely.

"I'll start force-feeding you vegetables. I'll…I'll torture you again. I'll put you out the fucking window if you don't _snap out of it_."

Rae has never felt so powerless in all its life.

Abruptly, it wonders if L feels the same way, isolated inside his own mind, unable to successfully commune with his body.

_No, no, no, no, no!_

_Not dead!_

_Rem._

Almost without thinking, Rae kneels down on the floor and gathers L up into its arms. L's limbs flop around, unresisting and ragdoll-like, but there is still a little rigidity in the curve of his spine. Like he's trying to maintain that infernal squatting position, even while being held.

_You can't die._

_You're mine_.

_Do you know that? You're MINE_.

It's okay.

Rae jostles L a little, pulling him closer to its chest. The flames lick around his body, bright and harmless, until the two of them almost seem to be part of the same entity. If Rae tips L's chin a little, it almost seems like he's making proper eye contact.

"Fuck you," Rae says, quietly. "Fuck you for everything_._"

* * *

_Good. Right_.

L is neither of those things. He murdered Naomi, and he murdered her child, and he ruined Raye's entire future – just like he ruined Mello's – and he failed to kill the first Kira and he's an awful, horrible, disgusting, monstrous, _ugly, pathetic, stupid_…

L realises suddenly that Rae is cradling him. That Rae is still here. His mind stumbles on that revelation, momentarily derailed from its guilt-ridden monologue. Momentary silence.

Oh.

_Help me_, L thinks, desperately, because he still doesn't feel any better. _Please help me_.

He feels like he's tumbling, falling numbly through the floor, falling forever with no end in sight. He ought to die. He doesn't want to die. Rae is hanging on to him, but he's still falling, and no one can possibly catch him.

He has no _anchor_.

_I love you_, L thinks, because it doesn't matter any more.

He can't be salvaged.

_Please help._

* * *

"I'm going to start singing at you. You don't want me to start singing, do you?"

Rae sort of feels like it's talking to a child. Or a person in a coma. It wonders if L can hear it at all.

_Of course he can. He's fine. He'll be fine_.

If Rae cannot beat this out of him, and it cannot reason this out of him, then there's nothing else it can do. It's made him as comfortable as it possibly can. And he _still_ won't. Fucking. _Do. _Anything.

Impulsively, it wishes it had lips. Like some sort of fairytale-styled saliva exchange might suddenly break L out of this spell.

And whoa, okay. That's really. L is really. It would be good, possibly, to kiss someone who actually meant something. Who Rae actually _wanted_. Exciting, even. L is exciting. Every single thing that Rae takes from him, gains from him, is like some sort of huge victory.

As feeble and misguided as he is, he belongs to Rae, and so it is right that Rae claims him. Piece by piece. Victory by victory.

And Rae can't remember his lifespan any more. It's pretty sure its wings have gotten smaller. And that is a fucking disaster, but it can wait. Priorities. One disaster at a time.

L's face is very close. Rae might not have a mouth, but L definitely does; thin pale lips, delicate jaw, and Rae is suddenly struck with inspiration.

Since Naomi died, L hasn't touched his mouth. Hasn't allowed himself that crutch, that comfort.

_Stupid. This isn't helping her_. _She's dead. Save yourself._

Rae rests its thumb across L's lips, and L suddenly comes up sputtering and flailing, like he really _was_ dying_._

"Hello," Rae says, tentatively. "You all right in there?"

L nods once, then shakes his head once, then regards the ceiling with urgent confusion.

"Help," he chokes. "Help. Stay. Help."

One hand closes around Rae's forearm, keeping his thumb in place. L threads his other arm spastically through Rae's chest, clutching like a terrified child, like he's hanging on for dear life.

"I'm here," Rae says, awkwardly, and L fucking bursts into tears.

* * *

It takes one and a half hours for L to exhaust both his lacrimal glands and his remaining stores of energy. And that's fine. He's alive, and he's okay, and Rae holds him. Rae keeps the pressure on his mouth, even though L is kind of drooling and gross.

_You're mine. I've done this for you, you're mine_.

_I can give you what you need._

_You don't ever get to leave me_.

They stay that way for a few more blessed minutes. L starts sucking on the tip of Rae's thumb, like it's his own, and that's fine, too. Rae listens to the clock tick, and ignores L's fingers moving minutely against its sternum, and everything is okay.

Apparently L falls asleep suddenly when stressed, because he abruptly sags, head lolling backwards, eyes half closed. Rae is overwhelmed with terror and drops him on the floor.

"Don't do _that_!" it snaps.

_It wasn't it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't!_

_He's fine._

_It's not like he'll ever know._

L blinks up at Rae with a bewildered, sad little expression.

"I'm sorry," he mutters. "I'll just…I'll just go and. Um."

Rae scoops him up again. Bridal-style, one arm under his knees and one around his back. It's simpler than arguing with him.

_It's good that Rem loves you. She won't be able to kill you again_.

Yes.

L doesn't resist, but he doesn't exactly relax, either.

"I'm a terrible person," he huffs, pressing his cheek to Rae's ribs. "How can I ever live with this?"

"You need sleep," Rae informs him.

"But-"

"Shut up, now."

"But you were right," L blathers. "I finally realised that you were right. I _am_ an evil person. You still think I'm an evil person, yes?"

Rae regards L at length. His shirt is riding up, exposing one malnourished-looking hip, his eye is unattractively reddened, and he more or less resembles a corpse.

_If you'd just._

_If you'd just see reason._

_If you'd just…we could have…_

"I think you're a tired person," it announces, out loud.

And then it collapses onto the bed, because L is pretty much surgically attached at this point, and it's easier than prising him off.

_So you should be. You ought to want me close_.

"You want me to sleep?" L asks, carefully.

Rae strokes its thumb over his lower lip.

"Yes."

"Okay," L whispers. "I will try."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading.


	48. Love

notes/warnings

+ I was trying to avoid recycling any of the manga/anime titles, but I cannot think of a single word that describes this chapter better.

+ warnings for swearing and unhappy people. same old.

+ also, more of L being naked.

* * *

**Love**

Dawn comes, eventually. Sunlight bleeds through the curtains, painting the room in ugly, washed-out pastels. Raye has not yet woken, and Mail knows from experience that sleep is the only peace he'll feel for a very long time.

Maybe forever.

Mail wants to grieve forever, but he figures other people don't always feel the same way. And quite honestly, he can't imagine anyone even considering the possibility of grieving forever if they didn't have someone as amazing as Mello to grieve over in the first place.

Almost automatically, Mail reaches into his pocket and retrieves the drawing. The paper is starting to tear along the creases, and the simple pencil linework is starting to become irreversibly discoloured. He ought to get it laminated, or framed, or something. But he wants to carry it around with him for as long as he can. He wants Mello close.

Matsuda's artistic skills are crap, of course. The shape of the face is wrong. And Mail is pretty sure Mello never had a haircut that was _that_ lopsided.

He's not _really_ sure, though. He can't really remember.

_Oh, doll. What am I going to do? What will happen in a hundred years? A thousand years? What if I forget your name?_

_What if I can't even remember who I'm mourning for?_

The very thought makes Mail despise himself. He cannot forget. He _must not _forget. This is his purpose, to remember. He grips the picture with both hands, his scrawny fingers framing the yellowed edges of the page. Mello deserves all of his attention, all the time.

And the eyes. The eyes really stand out, cold and confident and _fiery_. Mail is, like, eighty-nine percent sure the eyes are right. Or semi-right. He thinks maybe they looked different, on the last day. When Mello touched his forearm, and Mail did nothing at all. He likes to imagine Mello looked a little softer in that moment.

But he doesn't really know. He'll never know. Because…he cannot remember.

Mail kisses the picture, and then sets it in front of him. His lips are cracked and sloughing. Mello would call them disgusting.

_Would you be proud of me, doll? Would you be even a little bit impressed that I managed to pull myself together and take control? And be L?_

No. Mello would just demand to know why Mail was pitiful and broken in the first place. He'd never understand.

But he'd be glad Mail shot Takada. That would make him happy. It might even make him smile. It might even make him touch Mail's arm again, or pull him into a brief hug, or ruffle his hair, or…

But no.

Mello will never come back.

And he'd never hug Mail, anyway. That's just ridiculous. Mello saves what precious little affection he can muster for those who most deserve it. Like L. And, well, chocolate in general. Mello doesn't give two shits about him, and that's how it should be.

_But I did it. I did it for you_.

_I finally did something for you._

* * *

_It's your day off, and you have nowhere to go. Nothing to do. You and Dwayne raid a sweet shop and then you go cruising around the outskirts of town in his ancient, beat-up truck._

_Dwayne drives, and you eat fudge, and the wind blows your fringe out of your face. And Halle sends you a politely concerned text message indicating that she thinks your life might be better if you just gave up and quit your job. _

"_Hot chicks at two o'clock," Dwayne announces, punching the horn. "Whee-woo! Check out those puppies!"_

_The women look both disgusted and insulted, and you don't blame them. _

"_Girls are people too, you know, dick. Don't treat them like objects."_

"_Oh, drop the gentleman act, lardass," Dwayne says loudly. "It's not like you ever get laid."_

_You universally hate all attractive people, anyway. Unless they're Matt, of course. Everyone else just reminds you of what you want to be. What you aren't._

_Jasmine sends you a message. Some random crap about building a new vegetable garden so that Gemma can experience the miracle of life. Dwayne doesn't stop being a misogynistic fuckwad, and most of the chocolate is cheap and leaves an unpleasant aftertaste on your tongue. And you're one stupid mistake away from losing contact with Matt forever._

_And you really can't explain why you feel so good, right now._

_But you do._

_It's just one of those good days._

* * *

When L finally wakes, the sun is high in the sky, he's jammed up against a giant made entirely of fire, bones, and razor blades, and he feels inexplicably comfortable, and at peace. His Shinigami looks interesting from this angle – softer, even – and he feels well rested and utterly…

_Naomi Penber is dead_.

Reality comes flooding back, and L's stomach plummets, his happy mood smashed into a thousand jagged pieces.

Naomi is gone, stolen from him, _vanished. _He got Naomi killed. Raye loathes him. And Rae is…

Rae is _asleep_, L realises with mounting horror. Its eye sockets appear to be completely empty, it is lying in an awkward sort of position, and it doesn't respond when he waves one hand in front of its face.

_You're not supposed to be able to sleep!_ L thinks. He remembers that conversation. Shinigami don't sleep, they recharge. It takes a matter of seconds. And Rae has….well. Rae has been ill for a few days, now. Getting slow and heavy, brown eyes, smaller wings.

Smaller _wings_. They've practically shrunk away to nothing, and that's new. That's new since last night, even. L doesn't remember much except for the feeling of consuming, desperate _loss_ and his Shinigami wrapped around him like the world's most comforting and least warm blanket. But he _does_ remember that Rae's wings were much larger than they are right now.

_Can you fly at all, my friend_?

"Shut up," Rae mutters, clutching at the pillowcase. "Shut up, you don't know anything. Stupid kid."

A few seconds later it rolls over and relaxes, without showing any inclination of rousing.

_Dreaming_.

L gnaws on his thumbnail, hard enough to hurt. This wasn't supposed to happen. Out of all the people in the world, he ought to be able to save Rae. He ought to be able to save the one he…

Yes. He admitted that last night, didn't he?

_Is it true?_

_Am I really that far gone?_

He's not actually sure. He loves Naomi and Matsuda and Mail and Mello and possibly Raye Penber as well. But the heavy affection he feels for Rae is laced with _exciting_ and _want_ and some bizarre desire to be the only important person in Rae's universe.

Oh god. Okay. He's not going to think about that. It doesn't matter whether he is in love with his Shinigami. All that matters is that he _stops_ whatever parasite-like influence is sapping its powers and health.

It's not like they'll ever be together, anyway. Rae will leave, and Rae will go and become king and never think of him again. Rae doesn't care, so anything L feels ends with him.

But.

That time in the car. That was amazing. Pushed up against the wall and wanting more from Rae's hands than he's ever even wanted from his own and _fuck_, Naomi is dead, he shouldn't be thinking of these things.

He used to have so much control over his own thoughts, his own feelings. Now he's just old and obsolete; a messy bundle of errant emotion.

When he saw those brown eyes finally reappear, he felt a rush like nothing else. Not even the best cherry-cream-filled triple-decker caramel mudcake could compare. And even though he _knew_ it meant Rae was hurting again, he was still _selfish_ and oh god, he got Naomi killed. It's real. It actually happened. Any second now he's going to hear Raye screaming from downstairs and he'll have to face reality and–

Wait.

L wracks his brain; analyses date and assembles facts; on the verge of some sort of monstrous epiphany.

A few days ago, brown-eyed Rae appeared for the first time in several weeks. And it was when the two of them were together, and touching each other.

And…the second time L ever saw those eyes was that night he got drunk, when Rae had its fingers all over him. And the first time was when L was talking killing his _mother_, an act which had earned him Rae's unexpected approval. And…when Rae was able to control the eyes by getting angry, it always got angry at him. The trouble started around the same time that they became almost-friends and his Shinigami stopped raging at him, and started raging at other facets of its life.

_Dear god_.

He should have known. He ought to have recognised this sooner. Worthless, _worthless_ detective he turned out to be.

_It's me._

_I'm the trigger._

_You were safe when you disliked me, and you were harmed when we became closer._

The theory isn't one hundred percent certain, of course. More like ninety-seven percent. But enough. There are no other consistent factors involved in Rae's intermittent debilitation. It looked after him last night, and now it's goddamn _unconscious_.

If Rae keeps progressing at this rate, it will die very soon. That's the only logical progression of this illness.

Die, or go back to hell. L can no longer ignore that possibility.

And just like that, everything changes. Naomi is dead, Mail killed someone, Matsuda is gone, Light is probably coming back, and he failed what was possibly the second-most important case of his career. But that doesn't matter.

Because today, L is going to save someone. He's going to save the one person he cares about the most. And then, maybe, he'll be able to feel okay.

* * *

Rae sits in its chair, in the room, high up off the ground. The window looks the same as ever; huge, poorly-painted and dusty in the corners. The glass itself is spotless, though, and the view is near-panoramic; sprawling urban landscape, packed with building and citizens. A thousand shades of grey; drab, colourless, _boring_…

…single glittering thing on the ground.

The whole world pirouettes around it; all that matters, _everything_.

And the boy is there, sketched out in Rae's peripheral vision. Baseless and struggling, a nothing-person. Smart, though. Intellectual. Rae knows these things automatically, even though they always have the same conversation.

It strikes Rae, suddenly, that the boy might get along well with L. But even that's not a good enough reason to turn and look. One has to hang on to the precious things in the world, lest they disappear.

_So shiny. So perfect._

A crown, maybe. Or some sort of weapon. Some sort of heroic thing, waiting.

The boy shifts, ever so slightly. What Rae can see of him changes. And…is it just a trick of the light, or does he _resemble_ L?

"Don't look out the window."

_Don't. Don't, don't, don't_.

Hand on Rae's shoulder. Nothing-hand, no-one's hand. Stupid boy, trying to make Rae fail. Some sort of L-proxy.

"Fuck you," Rae says. "You're not even really him. You're…you're just a _shadow_."

_Fork in the road_.

The words appear unbidden in Rae's psyche, and then disappear. And the boy vanishes too, like he was never there. And it's just Rae and the glittering thing, and Rae feels like he's missed something hugely important.

But that cannot be. Rae doesn't make mistakes.

* * *

It's two in the afternoon, and none of the others are awake yet. Mail feels strangely peaceful. He smokes an entire packet of cigarettes, one after the other, and says a few prayers asking for Mello's comfort and health.

Then he spends a good forty minutes or so just staring at the picture.

Back when he was alive, he used to imagine that Mello would eventually settle down with some blazing-hot girl – or guy, possibly – and only write off his car every second or third week and possibly get a cat.

And even now, sometimes Mail likes to pretend that maybe Mello already has all of that, because he's so incredible that even hell couldn't hold him down for long.

_Oh please, just be safe. Just be okay. Wherever you are, doll, just. Just be okay._

Mail would sacrifice anything. He'd suffer a thousand hells. He'd bleed to death on cold bitumen for the rest of eternity. He'd trade places with Mello in an instant, if it meant Mello's happiness was guaranteed.

Even if it wasn't guaranteed. Even if there was just a _chance_.

But there isn't. And there is nothing Mail can do about it.

Mello is imprisoned in hell for the rest of forever, and here's fucking _Raye_ howling and gnashing his teeth over a woman who is only dead, not _gone_.

It's not fair. The world has never been fair to Mello, and Mail _hates_ that.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. Mail snatches at it, irritably.

"What is it, L?"

He really thought the skeleton might be able to keep L occupied for more than half a fuckin' day. Especially since they both seem to kind of adore each other.

Some people don't know how lucky they are, _damnit_.

"I need you to do something for me," L says, so softly Mail has to strain to hear him at all. "I am sorry to ask so much of you, but it needs to be done. And it must be kept a secret from Raye Penber, no matter what."

_Secrets from Raye? And it's not even a day since his wife was murdered? What the fuck?_

Working in this place is never boring, that's for sure.

Mello would have loved it here.

"Fine," Mail replies, flippantly. "What do you need me to do?"

L tells him, succinctly and in whispered tones. Mail doesn't argue, but in the privacy of the empty office, he rolls his eyes and kicks sharply against the leg of the desk.

This is the worst fuckin' plan he's ever heard.

* * *

Mail agrees to everything, and L is once again impeccably relieved that he has such a talented hacker on staff. Rae still hasn't roused. L theorises that it is still grappling with its imaginary boy.

Twenty minutes. Mail needs twenty minutes grace. Rae ought to sleep for that long. L crawls back into bed, slowly, carefully, and hooks one arm through Rae's ribcage, like he did last night. Like they belong together.

_Stop thinking like that!_

_It doesn't matter__ any more._

L lets his eyes fall closed, and drinks in this feeling of being secure. Of being _with _someone.

Because he cannot undo what he is about to do. And he will never have this opportunity again.

* * *

The room.

The chair.

The window.

The thing, the sparkling _thing_.

The boy.

The choice.

_Don't_.

The room.

The chair.

The window.

The thing.

The boy.

The choice.

_Don't!_

_Don't what? _

_Shut up._

The room, the chair, the window, the thing – _so _pretty, in a world full of ugliness – the boy, the choice.

_Fuck off and leave me alone!_

The room the chair the window the thing the boy the choice the _goddamnit it wasn't my fault!_

_Theroomthechairthewindowthe...  
_

Rae wakes – abruptly and inelegantly - to a small, quiet room with barred windows and no special things and no generic boys.

_It was__ a dream_.

_Of course_.

L is curled up at Rae's side, thumb in mouth, completely asleep. He looks gaunt and fragile. Someone needs to make him eat, and soon.

He shouldn't be doing this job.

He smells abhorrent. He sentenced his mother to death. He was fighting crime before most of his peers learned proper hand-eye coordination. The world is wringing him out like a cheap sponge, and nobody cares.

_I did it for people like you. _

_For the weak, and the frightened, and the defenseless, and the exhausted._

_It wasn't like that._

Rae sits up, and realises that everything is wrong. Its wings have completely evaporated. It feels heavy and sluggish. It feels _human_, and _oh god, this is awful_. It feels powerless, like it's going to struggle to protect _anything_. And that won't do at all. And it fell asleep. It fell _asleep_, dear god, what if something had happened to L?

L moans faintly and rubs at his eyes.

"Time is it?" he mumbles.

"Mid afternoon," Rae replies, trying to force itself to calm down.

_Everything is fine__. This can't be permanent. If Ryuk is to be believed, it's not even detrimental to my ascension to the throne. And anyway, I can fight it. I am clever. I am strong. I will find a way. I always do._

L leans forward sleepily and touches his lips to Rae's sixth rib, bringing Rae sharply back to here and now. They're on a bed together, and L is fucking _in mourning_. Now is not the right time.

It never seems to be the right time.

Rae pulls L's fingers from its sternum, one by one.

"How are you feeling?"

"Not great," L replies, with a watery little smile. "You?"

"I wasn't the one who was a veritable mess last night," Rae snaps. "Hand _out_ of my chest cavity, please."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

It's really not okay. Rae doesn't even have a nervous system, and it really shouldn't be this fixated on L's stupid, blunt, dirty, creepy fingers.

"I should go and do things," L says, muzzily. "I need to go and see Mail. And…and Watari. What should I do first?"

"What do you _need_?" Rae asks, because L _still _hasn't eaten, and he really ought to think about something other than a case he's already closed.

There is a _time_ for thinking about justice, and then there is-

_Wait, what?_

_No, that isn't right._

L rolls onto his stomach and chews on his thumbnail.

"I don't know. What do I need?" he asks, quizzically.

Rae smacks one palm against its skull.

"Okay, fine. If you're going to pretend to be a child, I'm going to treat you like one. Food first, then a shower. _Then_ you can go and find Watari."

"Shower first. Then food," L bargains, obnoxiously.

It occurs to Rae that maybe L _needs_ to be babied and mollycoddled and instructed. Such things might even be a normal part of L's grieving process. He certainly seemed to want someone to take control for him when Matsuda died. And when _he_ died.

_You should have come to me. I would have protected you._

_It's not my fault you made the wrong decisions in your life._

"You are being contrary," Rae says, heavily. "Fine. But you had better actually wash yourself this time."

L manages another tiny smile, and gets to his feet. His hair is even messier than usual, and his clothes are ridiculously rumpled and skewed, and he looks like sleep personified. L hesitates and turns to Rae.

"Are you going to come with me?"

Rae sighs.

"Of course."

"Are you going to _watch_?"

"Are you going to perhaps stop flirting with people while you are grieving and vulnerable?" Rae grumbles.

The word 'flirting' is loaded with implications that ought to clash horribly with the concept of _L_. And L's beaten-up, worn-out shirt is slipping down one shoulder, and Rae is going to be able to see a heck of a lot more skin once they get into the bathroom.

It's okay, still. Rae deserves to see L. Rae will find some other way to defeat this illness, because despising L is unacceptable.

_You belong to me, now_.

"You are probably right," L murmurs. "And…thank you. Thank you for taking such good care of me last night."

And L is still _L_. He's still too skinny, and ugly, and _wrong_. And this is weird. At _best_ it's weird. But it makes sense, if one applies the theory that L is a good person who got misguided along the way. It's no surprise he's finally turning to Rae. That he _likes_ Rae.

"You are welcome," Rae replies, and actually means it. "And...I'm _always_ right."

_You just haven't realized that yet. _

_But you will. _

_And when you do, everything will be fine. And you will be happy._

* * *

L reaches into his pocket and surreptitiously presses the 'send' button on his phone. Rae slept longer than expected.

Good.

The more time Mail has to prepare, the more credible the situation will seem. And L cannot afford any mistakes. He only has one opportunity to get this right.

L is really going to miss being with Rae. He's going to miss feeling _safe_ and he's going to miss the occasional affection and he's _really_ going to miss having someone as smart as him to talk to and solve cases with. But that isn't important.

What he wants has never been important.

Rae walks beside him, matching him pace for pace, not quite touching his side.

L stares at his Shinigami.

"You cannot even hover above the level of the floor?" he asks, quietly. "I am sorry."

"That isn't for you to worry about right now," Rae informs him.

_Everything is for me to worry about_, L thinks. _You underestimate me._

_But that's good. You underestimate me, and you don't know that I know your trigger. That makes everything easy. That enables me to protect you._

"If you say so," L replies, keeping his voice distracted, moderately concerned, and a little glum.

He can lie just as well as Light, when he needs to. He can pretend.

They walk the rest of the way in silence. L closes the bathroom door and takes his time removing his clothes. Five minutes. Mail will call in five minutes. For maximum believability, he ought to still be showering at that time.

Rae watches him intently, and L feels a little self-conscious, despite himself. He's been naked in front of the most evil man in the world. Rae shouldn't affect him at all.

But that's not the point, is it? It's not just the concept of being unclothed, it's _Rae_. It's the fact that someone he cares about - someone he maybe even _wanted a future with_ - is looking at him.

And L isn't naïve enough to hope that Rae might want him back just as hard. Rae defends him because it has to. And, yes, okay, clearly it cares for him a little, but L doubts its capacity to actually fall in love. It isn't _Rem_, after all.

So. He's in this alone, anyway. It was always inevitable that Rae would eventually leave him. It was only ever a question of _when_.

And today, that question will be answered, once and for all.

_As soon as possible_.

L sets his phone on the counter before stepping into the shower. The water feels warm against his aching back. The spray is sharp, drumming against his skin like a brutal sort of massage. Rae follows him, and pushes the soap into his hands.

"Get clean, and hurry up about it," it orders, bossily. "I'm not nursing you if you catch a cold."

L smirks.

"You definitely would."

Rae growls at him and moves back outside the cubicle. It can still see him through the colourless glass door, of course.

L is hardly the most attractive person in the world.

And yet, Rae still pinned him against the door of his car.

L shakes his head vigorously. This isn't helping. This is _stupid_. He is too exhausted from grief and work to properly control his emotions. Once this is done, he should get Naomi to talk him through…

Naomi is dead.

And sooner or later, L will have to face Raye. Raye, who will point and accuse and announce to the world, again and again, that L is responsible.

Raye, who must be horribly alone, empty inside, drowning in misery. This is far from over. Naomi will not be resuscitated just because L manages to save someone else.

L rubs the soap into his hair. He does what he has to do, and he will never stop working. Not ever. And maybe, if he saves a hundred thousand people, Naomi's death will not be in vain.

All his life, he's tried to protect people. Ever since _that boy_, crying on the baseball field, destroyed for the temerity of being smarter than L.

L had his own mother sentenced to death because he was angry. But all of that aside, he'd still…he'd still wanted to fix his boy. His first friend. And L had _tried. _L had reasoned with him and comforted him and punched him in the stomach in an effort to knock some sense back into him.

And when that hadn't worked, L had gotten desperate. He'd stolen his mother's bible; the enormous, comprehensive reference book that she'd compiled over many years. It contained patterns, designs, and formulae so complicated that even L himself could neither understand nor remember them.

L had taken the entire thing to school, and dumped it in front of his boy.

'_I need you to memorise this text.'_

'_What? It's almost as tall as I am. And t__hese days, I can't even do simple multiplication without using a calculator. You know that.'_

'_Please,' _L had begged. _'This is important. This is really, really important. Your father was killed by an explosive, wasn't he? You need to know this.'_

'_I'll never remember all of this. Never.'_

'_Please try. Do it for me.'_

L had sneaked the text to school for three days in a row, shoving it at his miserable friend at every possible opportunity.

He's never been good at dealing with the bereaved.

On the fourth day, his mother was arrested. She torched their hotel room to the ground before the police managed to restrain her. Everything was lost, including her book.

And L never saw that boy again.

But after that, his methods grew better, or at least, less futile. He learned the limits of the minds of others. He learned to manipulate and lie, instead of pleading. And what he is about to pull off today is no less than a work of art.

L's phone vibrates briefly and tumbles to the floor. Rae picks it up and examines it.

"Mail," it announces. "Will I tell him to call back later?"

L shuts off the water, his expression almost painfully neutral.

"No, give me the phone," he instructs. "It may be important."

"You're all wet," Rae protests, and holds the phone to L's ear instead.

_Ah. Even better_. _You will be certain to hear everything._

"Mail. What is it?"

"L," Mail greets curtly. "Look, I was thinking. I don't think I should delete Naomi's emails just yet. I think we ought to give her husband a chance to look through them first."

For a fraction of a second, L's eyes widen. Rae frowns at him and leans in closer.

"No," L says loudly. "That is not okay. I told you to permanently delete her inbox last night. You need to do it right now."

"Now?" Rae echoes. "Why is it so important?"

"It's important to a concurrent case," L tells it, briskly. "Mail. I want this task undertaken _immediately_. Right now. Without excuse or delay. Do you understand?"

"Okay, seriously, _why_ is this important?" Rae asks, sounding a little cranky. "She's dead, L. It doesn't matter."

"There are things Raye Penber ought not see," L snaps. "Mail!"

"I still think this is a bad-"

"_Mail_!"

L sounds veritably frantic, now, and that ought to be enough to pique Rae's curiosity. His Shinigami is far from stupid, after all.

Sure enough, Rae eyes him for the briefest of moments and then heads for the door.

"Where are you going?" L asks, quickly.

"To find out what the fuck is going on," Rae returns.

"_Stop_!" L yells, alarmed. "I want you to wait here with me. Mail. _Mail_. Delete those emails _right now_!"

Rae does not stop. Rae disappears down the hallway.

_Just as expected_.

"The skeleton is on its way?" Mail queries softly.

"Yes," L replies.

Then he hangs up the phone and chases after Rae, shouting and gesticulating in a most convincing manner.

* * *

For someone who doesn't have any gastrointestinal system to speak of, Rae feels strangely nauseated.

L has a secret.

L said something to Naomi. Something he doesn't want anyone else to know. And even now, L is doing everything he can to prevent Rae from finding out.

_You shouldn't have secrets from me. You're mine._

_You're mine._

_You're…_

_Aren't you?_

The notion that L might have had romantic relations with Naomi is ridiculous to conceive. Rae has been with L almost constantly. They didn't _have_ any time alone together, and Naomi certainly never gave any indication…

But it doesn't have to be mutual, does it? If L had feelings for her, and confessed, and dear _god_ no, no, no, no.

It is a stupid concept, infantile and mad. Nobody in their right mind would fall for someone like Naomi when they had someone like Rae.

Unless.

Unless L can sense…

No, but he can't. _Clearly _he can't.

It's impossible. Rae can't lose to that scrawny, washed-out little woman. It's _impossible_. L is a sure thing. L _has_ to be a sure thing.

So why does Rae feel so fucking awful about this, then?

"Look, it's nothing," L pants, thundering down the stairs, right on Rae's heels. "It's just private, that's all. Can't you stop? Can't you offer me some respect at this time?"

"I'd respect you if you'd tell me what the fuck was going on!" Rae spits.

_I looked after you. You have to choose me._

_You have to choose me anyway. She's dead!_

That's right. Naomi is no contest now. Even if L _does_, it's only a matter of time. And he'll learn that Rae is better than anyone else he's ever met. He'll learn in time. He's already learning now.

Rae has to move at maximum speed just to stay ahead of L. It reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns sharply towards Mail's office.

"_Wait_!" L howls, and he sounds insane, like he's becoming completely unraveled.

This is bad. This is so bad.

_You're mine you're mine you're mine you're mine._

_I did it._

_And you are mine._

* * *

When Raye wakes, the world is as bleak and unkind as ever, the empty spot in his bed worse than torture, worse than screaming, painful death.

And Raye is frightened of death. Really, _really_ fucking frightened.

And his stupid, _stupid_, uncaring colleagues are having a yelling match in the next room. Raye scratches at his stubble and lumbers towards the door, almost automatically. He hopes something bad has happened. He _wants_ something bad to have happened to them. Not because he hates them – and he _does_ hate them – but because he wants something else to do. Five minutes break from the consuming, mindless _misery_ that haunts him.

Naomi's been dead barely a day, and he's already desperate for some escape. He's as selfish as the rest of them.

He jogs down the hall – because the noise seems to be getting louder and more urgent by the second – and finds L, Mail, and Rae all grappling with each other in front of Mail's gigantic computer. The Shinigami has one hand wrapped around each of the humans, and seems to be trying to prevent them from reaching the keyboard. Mail is standing gormlessly, and L is hollering and flailing and what the fuck is going _on_?

_Don't you even know she's dead?_

_Have you forgotten that quickly?_

"Penber," Rae says, suddenly. "Quickly! Go to the computer and access Naomi's email account."

_What the fuck is wrong with you?_

"What?" Raye croaks. "What are you doing?"

_You have no respect._

_She died for you__, for all of you, and you don't even care!_

"It's important," Rae assures him. "Just do it!"

"Don't _listen_ to him," L gasps. "Stay where you are!"

"L and Naomi were hiding something," Rae tells him. "Did you know that?"

Raye blinks at it.

_L and Naomi were….what?_

_Hiding?_

_Not from me! My wife wouldn't keep any secrets from me._

"Hiding what?" Raye asks, filled with a vague and awful sense of dread.

_It can't be. Not after all this time. Not after she's already dead. The two of you can't have_.

_Please._

"It's _nothing_!" L says emphatically. "Mail! Just do what I told you to do before."

"You won't tell me what was in those messages," Mail drawls. "I'm not sure that I approve of deleting them without Raye seeing."

L hasn't told Mail, either. This can't be happening. It's too impossibly bad. This is a dream. This has to be a dream. Or a hallucination. Something.

"They don't concern Raye!" L snarls.

"See what I mean?" Rae asks. "I..I'm not even sure what is going on, but you need to look. I can't hold them back forever. Please, this is our only chance."

The Shinigami is panicked. The Shinigami is _scared_, and Raye regards it with momentary disgust.

_What are you so upset about? It's MY WIFE who was…_

But no, that isn't fair, is it? Rae cares for L. Rae _cares_ for L, and oh god.

They were…they were having an affair, weren't they? Or thinking about it? Or doing it already.

Then.

Then…the child.

Might not even be his.

A vague sense of relief hits him seconds before a powerful wave of guilt. If the baby were not his, that would be one less thing to mourn for. One less forever of sorrow and loneliness stretched out on the horizon, and _oh god they were sleeping together she loved him no no NO!_

Raye dives for the computer.

"Think about this," L begs, with almost comical dismay.

"I will kill you," Raye whispers, a promise, now. He will kill L for everything.

But first, he needs to know the truth.

The screens indicates that Mail has already logged in to his wife's account, and Raye is struck by just how _close_ L had come to destroying all the evidence. No one might ever have known.

Sick, sick _bastard_. If he had truly loved her, reciprocated or not, he wouldn't be so concerned with this now. He'd be throwing himself at the floor, hating himself with every fibre of his being for what he'd done. He'd be thinking only of Naomi, and not himself.

But that's L, isn't it? L is selfish. And evil.

Essentially, he is Light.

And there, damningly _there_, scattered amongst the last few messages Naomi ever sent, are several from L. No subject, and dated back several weeks before she left for the mission that claimed her life.

"Please, Raye," L murmurs. "Please try to understand."

_I'll see you burn in hell_, Raye thinks, viciously. _How dare you speak to me? How dare you speak to anyone?_

"Start at the beginning," Rae prompts. "There. The second one from the bottom of the page."

Raye clicks 'open', and holds his fucking breath.

Whatever horrors he is about to uncover, his life may never be the same.

* * *

'_L, I am worried about the Shinigami. We have no reason to believe it won't try to kill you, either during or after the five years.'_

The messages are short, and lack both formality and personal touch. But L knows they are the best that Mail could create in a meager thirty minutes.

Raye sucks in an unsteady breath, eyes a little wider than usual. It's not the sentiment he was expecting.

"What five years?" Raye mutters, and scrolls down to L's reply.

'_N. Everything is fine. Please do not worry any further about this matter_.'

"That's a cagey message," Rae notes, sounding confused. "So, were you sleeping with her or not?"

Raye opens the next email quickly.

'_L, this isn't the time to be a hero. There is no way to protect yourself against a god of death. Please be very careful. And please, do worry.'_

'_N. Once more I assure you that everything is fine.'_

"I don't get it," Raye admits. "Why…_why_ is this a secret."

"No reason!" L says, quickly. "This is a pointless activity, I assure you."

"If there isn't any reason for secrecy, then why wouldn't you tell me what you and Naomi were discussing?" Rae asks, sounding genuinely wounded.

"I'll keep going," Rays assures it.

L hadn't expected Raye to get involved in this. It is unfortunate, for his own mental health, but L cannot remedy that now. And if anything, his presence makes the situation even more believable.

Things are going well.

'_Do you have a way to defend yourself against something immortal, L?'_

'_Yes.'_

Mail frowns.

"Wait, is this about some sort of _weapon_?" he asks. "Huh. Okay. That makes more sense."

"A weapon against the Shinigami?" Rae says derisively. "There's no such thing, and L knows it. He's bluffing her."

'_Then, I want you to tell me. You owe me that much, after keeping such secrets from all of us. And if anything is to happen to you during this case, one of us should be equipped with enough knowledge to protect the others.'_

Raye hesitates, fingers hovering above the keys.

"She was always thinking of everyone else," he says, distantly. "Even when it was her who was in danger."

"Please stop," L urges, secure in the knowledge that Raye will never comply. Not until every last secret is uncovered.

Sure enough, Raye ignores him and clicks at the next message.

'_N, this is classified information. You may never discuss this with me, or anyone else. Rae doesn't know what I know, and it must be kept that way.'_

'_I understand_._'_

"What the fuck?" Rae growls. "This is a secret from me? Specifically, from me?"

Doubt is good. Rae ought to doubt him. He is L, after all. He is inherently a very bad person, as Rae is about to learn.

L stops fighting, and stares straight ahead with a dignified sort of expression.

Rae shakes him.

"What the hell is going on, L?" it demands. "What is this supposed to mean?"

There is still concern and affection in its voice, like it wants to help him. Like it is wounded and trying to understand.

"We'll find out," Raye says, thickly, his fingers guiding the mouse erratically around the screen.

'_N, I have found a way to kill Rae. It will__ take some groundwork, but it is definitely achievable.'_

Rae actually laughs, short, high, and hysterical.

"What is this? Kill me? Kill _me_? This is a joke, right?"

L stays silent.

"Naomi didn't reply to that one," Raye says, gruffly. "I can't say I blame her."

"You're L! You don't kill people for no good reason! And you certainly wouldn't kill _me,_" Rae babbles. "What is this? This isn't real. This isn't you."

_So you finally decided I'm not __evil_, L thinks, bitterly. _I am almost sorry to have to change your mind._

_But I'm not sorry, because you'll be safe._

_I love you, and you'll be safe, and that's all anyone can ask for._

L realises with a lurch that maybe he finally understands how Rem felt about Misa. Maybe even how she felt about him.

L regards the floor, and nothing else. Rae is truly frightened now, and it is a difficult thing to witness.

'_N, you must not tell anyone of this. Not even your husband. If I can convince Rae that I care for it, then it should start to care for me. If a Shinigami has feelings for a human, they will almost inevitably die for that human. And Rae's affections are physically obvious. This will not be a difficult task for me. I've studied its behaviour for many years. I know how to behave to make it like me.'_

'_You're actually going to lure this thing to its death? I'm not sure I can approve of that.'_

Rae releases both L and Mail, and starts to edge away.

"No," it says, in horror, in denial. "No. Fuck you. No."

Too hurt and shocked to even raise its voice. L has judged it to perfection.

'_I do what I have to do to keep people safe. Shinigami are not people. Any god of death would kill a human without thinking twice. I will do the same, just once, and buy our safety. It is a necessary sacrifice.'_

'_I suppose. But still, please be careful. And only do as much harm as is absolutely necessary.'_

L frowns at the last line. Naomi would not be so easily convinced. But it doesn't matter, Rae doesn't care what Naomi had to say. Rae is in fucking pieces.

"You," Rae hisses. "How. How did you…?"

"Your weaknesses were fairly obvious from early on," L says, sounding as put-out as possible. After all, he's just had his supposedly brilliant plan absolutely quashed.

"You wouldn't do this," Rae blathers, voice high and frenzied. "We were _friends_. We are friends. What the fuck?"

"As far as I am concerned," L says coldly, "_all_ Shinigami are murderers. But yes, winning you over was laughably easy."

"You are _horrid_," Raye says accusingly. "You…this thing _looked after_ you."

"Please don't project Naomi onto the Shinigami," L requests. "This thing is a monster, Raye. You and I were both killed by Shinigami in the first world. We need to think of the public."

"I'm not a monster!" Rae wails. "You're. You. _You're_. You've been trying to _kill_ me, you _lied_ to me, you…you…"

"Mail," L says, calmly. "The only person you ever cared about was murdered by something very much like Rae. And now you have removed my primary method of eliminating Rae. Are you proud of yourself?"

"Eliminating?" Raye asks, sounding gobsmacked.

"Primary method?" Rae manages.

"_Fuck _you," Mail replies, his voice laced with venom and darkness. "Fuck you. I was trying to look after Raye. Fuck. You."

"It's okay," L tells him, primly. "I have other plans. I may still be successful."

"You will _never _be successful," Rae chokes. "Never, ever, ever, ever. _Damn you!_"

And when L finally raises his head, he sees that his Shinigami has red eyes. Blood red, murder red. Functional red.

_You will be okay_.

_Nothing bad can ever happen to you_.

Rae turns and flees from the room, moving fifty times faster than it did five minutes ago, wings back to regular size. Cowering and upset and healthy and _safe_.

Mail punches L in the mouth. Just for effect. Just as instructed.

"I can't believe you did that, L," Raye says softly.

"A Shinigami murdered your wife," L reminds him. "Twice."

Raye does not speak again.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you for reading.

+ next update is probably about two weeks away. sorry, everyone, but real life is being demanding and stupid again.


	49. Records

notes/warnings

+ warnings for swearing, grief, Rae's personality in general, etc etc.

+ now seems like a good time to rehash my overreaching warnings for bad writing and an incredibly self-indulgent fic (concrit is still welcome, though).

* * *

**Records**

Rae flies and flies and _flies_, desperately trying to get as far away from L as possible. Eventually, it ends up hiding in one of the spare garages, huddled on the cold cement floor, wings braced against the locked door. Its head is spinning, overloaded with a thousand details, a thousand tiny damnations.

'_I need you. I need you, and I miss you.'_

'_Do Shinigami feel pleasure, Rae?'_

'_Help. Help. Stay. Help_.'

Lies. All of it, lies.

Rae can understand it, of course. That's the worst part. It understood as soon as it read those messages. And even as the world shifted, and became a dozen shades uglier than before, Rae could only admire L's skill and attention to detail. The meticulous way he fostered a relationship, and won Rae's confidence, and trust, and affections.

All this time, all this time.

_Damnit, no!_

_You were supposed to be mine._

_But you._

_You._

What had L said? _'I know how to behave to make it like me'_. Absolute proof. Inarguable proof. Rae is no imbecile.

_You set out to kill me, all along_.

Every touch, every smile, every word a lie. Rae knows how the game works. Rae has played it before.

And Rae doesn't lose. Rae _never_ loses.

'_You, though. I…I like you.'_

Liar.

Rae wanted L, for a companion, for a pet. For an eternity.

No. Rae wanted who Rae _thought_ L was. Hardworking, and moderately good. Ineffectual, but heroic.

But L is not that person. L is a thousand criminals, wrapped up in a fragile, treacherous exterior. L is the monster.

_You had no right._

_How dare you take me for a fool._

To try and murder the future Shinigami king – the one person who can actually _save the world and make it right_ – that is the most heinous crime in existence.

'_Stay. Help'_

Liar!

To toy with another person in this way is never okay. Is never anything short of wicked.

_Except when…_

_Except when._

_It doesn't matter._

L is a lie.

No, L is L. Rae was right all along. L is _L_. And Rae will kill him, in the end. And it will be slow. And torturous. And humiliating. And the world will be better for his absence.

_I cared for you, and this is how you respond?_

_I've never cared for anyone in my life, and now._

Rae uncurls, finally, and stares at the ceiling. Belatedly, it realises that it feels physically excellent. Its strength is back. Its body is restored.

Rae smiles.

Everything is fine. Rae might have been temporarily deceived, L still ultimately failed. Too stupid and disorganised to even properly hide evidence from the one person he was trying to destroy.

_You haven't changed at all, have you?_

Something has changed, but Rae is okay. Rae will be king, and L will struggle and fall and _pay and pay and pay._

Soon.

_I did it before and I'll do it again_.

_And you'll know all about it._

* * *

_Where do I go from here?_

Jas sits cross-legged in her garden, the rich soil staining the bottom of her wings.

She took a life. She shortened a lifespan. She _killed_.

There is nothing separating her from the other Shinigami now. She could be any one of them. But then, she _is_ one of them, isn't she? She always was. She was one of the very first, back before there was anything. But then…

Then the notebook came to her. It chose her and she chose it. She lost the need to write in it many millennia ago. It is tuned to her thoughts. And her inadequacies. Her mistakes. Writing 'and no innocent lives were lost' means nothing if she lacks the mental fortitude to see that command fulfilled.

It was only one life. Just one, after all this time. Surely she is allowed one mistake?

_Why not two, then?_

_Why not take two human lives and have what I really want?_

No. She can't. She absolutely must not interfere with those in hell. Every hell, every path, every test is specifically and painstakingly calculated. Set in stone. She cannot. She _can't_.

She can't take Keehl.

Can she?

No one will ever know. If he never comes back, he will be presumed to have failed his chance at redemption.

She could. She could do it. There would be no consequences. Probably.

And this is the issue at hand, isn't it? She cannot trust herself. She cannot _trust_ herself, and therefore, any decision that she makes might be wrong. And maybe that didn't start with Naomi Penber's death. Maybe it happened a few years ago.

_Was Wakefield supposed to go free?_

She cannot give up, of course. Someone must control hell. Someone must punish the bad, and protect the good, and _oh goodness, what has that marvelous boy done now?_

Her attention is drawn, as always, to L. To L, who fights for justice all the time.

And who has just unwittingly thwarted the most evil person he will ever encounter.

Jas clasps her hands and smiles.

* * *

Raye showers and shaves and gets fresh cutlery and makes coffee and toast. And then he stares at his breakfast with incomprehension, and eventually gives up and dumps the lot into the rubbish bin.

He's going through motions. He's just. He can't eat.

Raye washes up with trembling hands, the whole, empty _day_ unfolding all around him. What is he supposed to do? Plan Naomi's funeral? Find another case? Punch L until both his fists are raw and bleeding?

Kill himself?

Leave?

He can't. He can't handle any of those things, even the ones that he desperately wants to do. He's not even certain that he has the emotional reserve to properly grieve. He lets the plate fall from his hands and shatter on the floor, and walks away from the half-filled sink, back to his room, and crawls into bed. In the middle of the fucking day.

No other place seems to make sense. At least here, with the dim light and the familiar smells, he can pinpoint exactly where Naomi ought to be. Next to him, and asleep, nose wrinkled and one arm thrown out over her pillow, pulse steady, alive.

_No more. Never again_.

He stays there for hours, eyes squeezed shut, utterly awake. Like maybe if enough time passes, he will somehow magically become a whole person again, and _fuck L for trying to kill someone who cared about him. _Fuck him for throwing that _away_, without so much as a second glance, without even a glimmer of regret.

Shinigami are people too, really. Aren't they? Theirs kind of is, anyway. It's an evil-looking, grumpy thing, but it's a part of their team. If L starts picking and choosing who he protects and who he harms, then who is next? Raye?

Good. Raye would like that. Raye would like L to try and destroy him. It would take him away from this life, this bed, these horrible _choices_ that weigh on his mind. Living without Naomi and _dying _and everything in between. And then the world might finally see that L was a terrible person, but oh god, Raye doesn't want to die. He wants to _live_. He wants to stay warm and alive and he wants Naomi to come _back_.

A Shinigami murdered his wife. Twice.

_But that isn't true_, Raye thinks, grimly. _She was murdered by Kira. By Light Yagami. And then by Kiyomi Takada. The Shinigami are just vehicles. Just tools._

And now L has a death note, too. Can Rae refuse to serve him, if it chooses?

God, he hopes so.

But the Shinigami provide the _means_, don't they? They obviously don't _care_ for humans, or they wouldn't go around turning select individuals into mass-murderers. Superhumanly powerful mass-murderers.

Raye relishes this train of thought. This is functional, and maybe even progressive, and outwardly-focused, and nothing at all to do with Naomi.

His wife. His _wife_.

He is going to become _Mail_, isn't he?

No, he can't. He doesn't have the strength to be like Mail. He wants his _life_ back, and that is the principle difference between the two of them. He wants to one day…

He wants.

Dear god.

Raye desperately tries to focus his mind back on L and the Shinigami and _anything else, anything but him and his own situation_, but Naomi's face is everywhere, even when he opens his eyes, and he cannot. He cannot escape.

She would want him to move on. To get back up. To fight. To keep solving cases and making the world a slightly better place.

But he _can't_.

He's not her.

And he is not strong.

* * *

Watari goes to L's room with a tray of scones and some of the most disturbing information he's ever encountered.

_Nothing. Not a thing. No relatives, no friends, no colleagues, no records. Not a shred of evidence to suggest that any of the victims were anything other than fabrications of the media. For all__ we know, only Roper and Naomi were real._

Meaning that perhaps, Naomi died for nothing. Perhaps Takada never would have truly killed again.

And how on earth are they supposed to fight a being powerful enough to alter reality in such a believable way? For not the first time, Watari is glad that he is not the one making the decisions.

Watari knocks once, opens the door, and sets the tray down on the nearest horizontal surface. L barely looks at him. Watari is aware that he's had some sort of altercation with his Shinigami, but L has yet to provide him with further details. In fact, he's always been very reluctant to speak of his relationship with the monster that haunts him.

Watari hopes that he is okay. That he is still mentally and emotionally sound, despite everything. The world still needs him, after all. It especially needs him now, because…

Because.

"Tell me quickly, Watari," L monotones. "What did you learn?"

_That the victims._

_All of Takada's victims._

_All the victims were..._

_Were..._

Watari blinks in surprise. He came here to tell L something, and he _knows_ that nobody develops age-related forgetfulness in the second world, and yet he's suddenly not certain of what he wanted to say. His mind is a veritable fog, and he curses himself for not writing it down.

For not writing.

Hmm.

"Is something wrong, L?" he asks, politely, because L seems to be excessively distressed.

"Those killed by the second Kira," L says, his voice harsh and loud. "What did you learn, Watari?"

"Oh, yes," Watari says, remembering something at last. "Several of the names checked out. Tax records, mostly. And a few estranged relatives."

He's…he's pretty sure that's what he found. Yes, why would it be at the front of his mind, if it were not the correct information? He is dependable, after all.

"Did you speak to any of these people by phone or email?" L asks. "Did you make any contact with any of them at all? How do you know the relatives are real?"

"Real?" Watari echoes. "Real? L…are you well?"

It isn't like L to speak like this. Watari is absolutely confident in the results of his research, yes, he confirmed that several of the murdered criminals had ties. Now L is speaking of madness, of…of _pretend people_, and Watari doesn't understand.

But it isn't his place to say anything.

L looks away.

"I am sorry," he says, softly. "Please forgive me. I am not myself right now, but I soon I shall be fine. Please…please organise a private jet to leave in one hour. There is something that I must tend to quickly."

"It is already evening," Watari points out, mildly. "But the forecast is for a clear night. Where shall we be going?"

"Washington," L tells him. "As close to the Tracking Library as possible. I want you to stay in the aircraft. I will conduct my business alone."

"As you wish, L," Watari says, and leaves promptly.

For some reason, his head feels a little strange. But he's sure that it's nothing to worry about.

* * *

This.

This is _good_, actually.

All the doubt, all the niggling uncertainty is vanished. L is wrong. Was wrong. Is evil. Was always evil.

_Exactly as I thought, exactly as I predicted_.

There is something incredibly heartening about having been right, all along. Something comforting and familiar about volleying right back into loathing L. About knowing that he will fail and lose and die and finding all of that _delicious_.

Will be. Will be, soon.

And the best part is, L has effectively screwed himself. His true intentions for Rae were revealed in front of his employees. And while Mail was unimpressed at best, Raye Penber was downright _upset_.

He ought to be. He's lost his wife. He's vulnerable. And he obviously despises L. Now, more than ever before

And anyone who isn't on L's side _must_ be on Rae's side. There is only the two of them, after all. The only people that matter, for ever and ever, stupid fucking game. Good versus evil, and good will win. Rae will win. Rae always wins.

"For fuck's sake, stop picking the locks to my room!" Raye snarls, twisting his head around to get a better view of the door.

"It's me," Rae says, gently, because Rae is _good_ at this. It has been a long time since Rae actually had to pretend to care about someone to get what it wants, but old habits are never forgotten.

"Shinigami," Raye says, hoarsely, and slumps back onto the bed. His hair is a greasy mess, and his stubble is visible even in the darkened room.

_Pathetic_.

_No, not pathetic. Easy_.

"I apologise for disturbing you," Rae says hesitantly.

"It's kind of been a rough day for everyone," Raye says, weakly. "Uh. Are you okay?"

"A little shaken."

"You sound frightened."

"Yeah," Rae replies, with just the _right_ amount of reluctance. "Maybe a little of that, too."

"One of your kind murdered my wife," Raye mutters. "I can't offer you much sympathy."

"Oh, that's understandable. To be honest, I was more worried about you."

"I'm worried about _her_," Raye croaks.

"Naomi? Oh, don't concern yourself with that," Rae assures him. "She's in the third world. All humans go to the third world, when they die here."

It's not actually sure, and it doesn't actually care. But Raye isn't to know that.

"Or to hell, right?"

"Naomi was good. She won't go to hell."

"What if there isn't _anything_?" Raye wails. "I mean, how would we _know_?"

_Perfect. Absolutely perfect_.

"Nope, won't happen. All humans have somewhere to go. It's only the Shinigami king – and heirs to the throne – that cease to exist after they die."

Raye stares at it in mounting horror.

"I didn't mean to say that," Rae says, ruefully. "That isn't your burden to bear, either. Tell me, do you think you're going to stay here, or leave L's team?"

"So L wanted to destroy you completely?" Raye mutters. "Did he _know_ that's what would have happened?"

"Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to share that fact with him, yes. Back when I still thought we were friends."

Raye struggles into a sitting position.

"Look," he says, softly. "I can't even think straight, right now. I don't like your kind, and I can understand why _he_ wants to protect people. But…but what he did to you…"

"I really liked him," Rae interjects, sadly. "To think that he was laughing at me - and _hating_ me - the whole time."

"He was an asshole," Raye agrees, angrily.

And this, this is all Rae needs. This tiny little alliance. Raye doesn't have to renounce L, all he has to do is support Rae more.

A back-up plan. Just in case L gets cocky and tries again.

"What about you? Will you stay, or will you leave? I mean, it's not really safe for you here, is it?"

"I have to stay with L for five full years," Rae says, truthfully. "I have several months left."

_And I wouldn't get too attached to L after that, Penber. Because I'll be sending him right to hell._

_Right where he belongs. _

"Be careful," Raye warns, and in the privacy of its own mind, Rae laughs and laughs.

Everything is back on track.

* * *

_Curse you, god of hell._

L logs in to Watari's computer account only to find that all of his browser history has been deleted. All the records of the research he'd just performed; the coding, the cookies, _everything_. Watari's report alone was only slightly suspicious, but Watari _never_ covers his footsteps so unsubtly, and certainly not without explicit instruction from L. He obviously found something that the hell-god didn't like. Which means he probably found that none of the other victims had any records or ties to real people at _all_.

_It will take more than that to stop me from chasing you_, L thinks, angrily. The god of hell is _here_, taunting him, killing his staff, changing people's _minds_ right in front of him.

The news is no longer reporting significant public panic. In fact, faux-Kira was barely mentioned at all in the major newspapers and new channels.

L is apparently the only person who can be relied upon to recall information regarding the Takada case. Fine. He will go to the Tracking Library, and pay Minnie a visit. Then he will go to the police headquarters, to see how many of the arrested supporters seem to be real.

He really, _really_ wants Rae's help on this, but that isn't an option any more. L is on his own.

Metaphorically speaking.

"I can see you, you know," he says politely.

"I can see you, too," Rae replies, acidly.

It has been standing behind him for the past three minutes. L deliberately doesn't look at his Shinigami, mainly to convey his utter disinterest in its well-being.

And because it still hurts, a little, to see it so angry.

But safe. Healthy and safe. Everything L could ever possibly ask for.

"Do you like staring at me?" L queries, steadily. "Do you still care for me, just the tiniest bit?"

"Not at all," Rae tells him. "I'm afraid your opportunity to kill me is gone. What a pity you are so… _stupid_."

"Stupid, because I want to protect my fellow human beings from demons like you?"

Rae is pretending to be calm, but L can hear the soft, telltale sounds of skeletal fingers clenching into fists.

"_You_ are the demon," it declares. "Criminal. _Murderer_."

L chuckles.

"I wrote your name in the death note before. You cannot honestly tell me that you are surprised, Shinigami."

"You _lied_ to me!" Rae says, emphatically. L allows himself one glance at its face, and sees that its eyes are so red that they almost seem to _burn_.

_Good._

_Be safe._

_I love you._

"I would have lied to anyone in your position," L responds, with a shrug. "It isn't anything personal, Rae. It's just that you are a god of death. Your kind practically preys upon humanity. And I am obligated to protect society against things like you."

"It doesn't matter," Rae says haughtily. "Even if you hate me, you'll still have to use the note. You still haven't figured out why, have you?"

"Does this mean you'll be staying by my side?" L asks, thoughtfully chewing on his thumb. "Hmm. Interesting. So I may have another opportunity to eliminate you."

Rae grunts in disgust and walks away. There is finality in its movements. It may not speak to him again for quite some time.

_And you'll never know._

L smiles.

* * *

L makes preparations to travel. He leaves Mail in charge of headquarters, and packs a tiny video camera and two masks.

There was a time that he would have had handed control over to Rae, instead.

Rae folds both hands over the back of its neck and kicks hard at the floor. Infuriatingly, this isn't as simple as it initially thought. Having cared for someone deeply leaves imprints. Memories. A touch, a glance, a thought. For perhaps only the second time in its life, Rae cannot control all of its emotions down to the finest nuance, and that is _terrifying_.

But it's not the same as last time. Rae isn't going to die.

Everything is fine.

The problem is; L was briefly victorious. For a short time, Rae believed that L harboured strong feelings for Rae, so he became _safe_. It was fine to care about him, and want to own him, because he was apparently besotted and obviously powerless.

Rae has always looked down on those who cared deeply for others. Intense friendship, romantic love, dependence; these things are all flaws. The people who feel them are not wicked or corrupted, but they are _weak_.

Only the strong have the right to rule. The right to decide. The Misas, the Rems, the Takadas of the world; they will always fall by the wayside. To be strong is to not care about people, to only care about right and wrong.

Rae has no heart. Kings do not need hearts. Gods do not need hearts. Rae is perfect in every way.

Everything is fine.

'_I know how to behave to make it like me'_

Liar.

Murderer.

Killer.

It _is_ good to be back. Good to be operating at full strength, floating through the world free from the dead weight of unimportant people. Everything is right as it should be.

And the best part is that Rae can once more see those damning red numbers, ticking down over the top of L's head. Reliable and comforting. When he's gone, everything that is left in Rae's memories will die with him.

When he's gone.

Not too long now.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

* * *

Washington hasn't changed; the same mishmash mix of ancient and modern buildings, filled with the same throngs of bustling, busy people. Even the tang in the air is the same, equal parts exhaust fume, cologne and frying oil.

The world has not changed. There is no reason for a city like this to acknowledge the passing of a single person. Especially not a person who lived overseas, and who kept her identity hidden most of the time. L knows this, intellectually, and yet he is still briefly overwhelmed with how _normal_ everything seems. Everyone else is okay. His team is falling apart, but the world outside remains unchanged.

Watari is waiting in the aircraft, as instructed. His Shinigami is following him, at a great distance, watching his every move. Trying to figure out a way to counter an attack that is never actually going to come. It will probably kill him, for this. But perhaps he will want to die, anyway, when it leaves him.

Perhaps this time, he will go to hell.

The ice-cream stall is still in business, doling out creamy peach and divine chocolate and amazing pistachio, but L has no appetite at all.

How long has it been since he last ate?

Doesn't matter. Naomi is dead, and Rae is lost. And he is a failure. Unless he can find and defeat the god of hell, everything will be in vain.

L ambles through the courtyard, and up the stairs. The expensive paving stones are cool and smooth under his feet. The Tracking Library is a monstrously huge construct – tall and well-built and beautifully maintained and slightly charred in places, if you know where to look – but L no longer feels impressed or relieved by its existence.

_You told me Takada was in hell._

_And yet she came here. Here. What next?_

_Who next?_

_Not him. Please, anyone but him. Not with Rae against me, and Naomi and Matsuda gone._

_Please_.

They defeated a gorgon in this place. They captured Holland, right here, by the main door. L's last big, successful case. He is becoming outdated.

But what else can he possibly do? No other job would satisfy him, he can hardly marry his Shinigami and buy a house and adopt nine kids and live out the Raye Penber domestic dream, and anyway, he'd never forgive himself if he stopped trying to protect people, even for a moment. If he is making even the slightest bit of difference, then he must struggle on.

L did a brief media search of his own, before coming here. No preliminary evidence for any of the victims actually having existed.

Perhaps he _isn't _making any difference at all.

L steps through the archway into the library proper and…

…bounces back.

From an empty doorway. From air. He blinks, and then reaches out with one hand.

Solid.

Like a well-polished sheet of glass. He can _see_ in, but he cannot _get_ in. L hits at the invisible barrier with both fists. Then he kicks it. A woman walks past him, walks right through, and enters the library without any resistance at all.

_You're trying to keep me out_? L thinks, angrily.

_Fuck you._

_You killed my deputy. You put Takada in the real world, and she killed Naomi, and now you're locking me out?_

_Why? What can Minnie possibly tell me?_

_Is Minnie you? Is she the god of hell? Is she the queen?_

L takes a running start, and connects loudly with the empty doorway, pain surging through his limbs. The barrier is perfectly smooth to touch, like a sheet of plastic. He takes a pocketknife from his sleeve and stabs at it. The blade buckles and folds.

This is pointless.

He cannot fight against the god of hell. Not with weapons, anyway. Not with anything with a physical presence. The only place he – or she – cannot reach seems to be the inside of his own mind.

A couple with a small child exit through the archway, right next to him. They don't seem to be able to see him at all.

_Why are you doing this? What can you possibly hope to gain_?

L reaches for his phone, and dials the number for the Tracking Library. And immediately is connected with the answering machine.

"_Hello, this is the Tracking Library. Our staff are unavailable right now. Please note that records cannot be given out over the phone. If you have another request, leave a message after the tone."_

L hangs up with a little more force than is entirely warranted. He is angry. He's come this far, and some omnipotent god is _hiding from him_.

_Are you just toying with me? _

_You are clearly too strong for me to harm you, so why won't you speak with me?_

_Are you afraid of me?_

No. That is ridiculous. Maybe in his younger days, in his surer days, he might have been competent and impressive enough to merit the respect of a god. Now, he's just a sad old man, fighting for justice. And losing.

Defeated, L turns and heads back to the plane.

* * *

They return to headquarters, and take one of the lesser used cars to Grint Street Police Station. L is already expecting to come away empty-handed, but it would be remiss of him not to _check_.

"Here we are," Watari announces unnecessarily.

"Yes," L agrees. Rae is about a hundred meters behind them, but it is matching the vehicle's velocity without much effort.

_It's good that you don't feel comfortable being close to me._

_I can protect you, this way_.

L has never had to protect anyone from himself before.

"What are we doing here, L?" Watari enquires. As if L hasn't told him before. As if he honestly can't remember that he…can't remember.

_Curse you, hell-god._

"Private business," L says succinctly, because he is getting sick of saying the same thing over and over. "Please wait here, once more."

If he doesn't directly reference his suspicions, Watari doesn't seem to forget.

The more senior officers know of his visit. Or more specifically, they know that a representative from L is coming to inspect those that are being held for questioning.

There isn't any point in L handling these people himself. There isn't anything he needs to know about Takada. Naomi was there in the thick of it, after all. He has both video and audio recordings of the whole incident. He is here to gather evidence against the hell-god, that is all. But nobody else needs to know that. And even if he tells them, they won't remember.

He stands in the observation room – which is little more than an old office with a desk jammed in and too many video screens mounted on the wall – with his hands deep in his pockets, staring. There are enough people in the cells to match the list of names in his hands. Grianna Jones has already been released on bail, alongside a few others, but they are still showing up on police records.

So what does that mean? Either these people are _real_, or the hell god is trying a little harder to dupe him. Now that he is here, L isn't actually sure what he was hoping to find.

"Do you have any records of any of faux-Kira's victims?" he asks, quietly.

"Sorry, sir," his escort replies. Maxwell. Officer Maxwell. He was at the scene of Takada's arrest. "None of them occurred in this district."

"I see. Thank you for that."

Which is all fine and good, but L can recall that some of them distinctly _did_ occur in this district. So, the hell-god is capable of some subtlety. Wonderful.

L goes to a few of the cells in person, peeking in through the gaps in the sliding hatch. Everyone seems completely normal. Breathing, moving, behaving like ordinary accomplices.

L watches the woman called Leah drum her fingers against the bench over and over.

_What am I doing here_?

This is pointless. There is no reason to presume the hell-god cannot make believable, real people when it suits him. Or her. And there is no reason to believe that it cannot re-animate dead people, bringing them back to a previous world for her own purpose.

The female pronoun fits better, L thinks. There is some evidence to support the hell-god as the Shinigami queen.

So, _she_, until proven otherwise.

Could she have simply created Grianna? Is it possible that Wedy's mother isn't really in this world, or shouldn't be in this world? Should he consider that everyone around him might possibly be a lie?

_Raye. Mail. Watari._

_Rae._

_No!_

That is an absurd and destructive train of thought. The evidence for other people forgetting events is restricted to the Holland case and the Takada case. Thus, the hell-god presumably only controls people who are in some way related to the actions of those who are in hell. Or being tested. He ought not forget that being in hell and being tested are two different things, and that someone in hell may not know they are in hell - may not even seem to be suffering at all – if that is a requirement for their test.

And, if Grianna's words can be trusted, then those in hell who appear in the second world are always here to be tested.

And L _does_ have a way of identifying the influence of the hell-god. When others forget and he remembers, he will know that she is moving.

_And what good will that do? She cannot be bargained with, or threatened, or begged, or brought to justice. She cannot even be reached. And if she really is controlling the entirety of hell, then she is effecting so many people. Judging the whole of humanity._

_Just like Light._

_Only omnipotent. Or near-omnipotent. _

L sucks in a deep breath, and goes back to the car. He has neither the power nor the resources to fight against the god of hell, and he knows it.

And she undoubtedly knows it, too.

* * *

When they get back, Rae takes one of his laptops and disappears. L doesn't even want to think about what his Shinigami is feeling right now. It never cared for him specially, of course, but any sort of betrayal is painful. And it is terribly destabilising to have been lied to.

L wishes they could have still worked together. He wishes there could have been some other way to save Rae.

He scans the media for new cases, even though his team is in no real condition to start working again. He just needs _something_ to occupy his mind.

Because Naomi is still dead. There is no escaping that. She was his deputy, his main supporter. His friend. The first time, she died trying to reach him. Now she has died trying to save him. L wants her back more desperately than ever before.

He'd give up his remaining eye. He'd give _anything_.

He's so hungry, and he can't stomach food. Nobody else will drag him into bed with them, just to lay in companionable affection. Nobody else is going to be able to force Mail to bathe and wash his hair occasionally. What will they do without her? What will _any_ of them do?

For the first time, L wishes his inner Near voice would come back. He wishes he could be unempathetic and emotionless right now. He wishes he could be a machine.

If people he cares for keep up the current rate of attrition, all of them will be gone within a few years. He will be completely alone.

He used to be just fine, on his own.

Now the scenario sounds so bleak and ugly and endless that L thinks he would rather die. He wants his life, the way he has it now. He wants his world coloured by the people around him.

He was a machine when he lost to Light. He cannot become that person again.

"Hey," Mail greets, wandering into the room.

"Hello," L deadpans. "Thank you for taking care of Raye."

Mail arches an eyebrow.

"Which one?"

"Penber," L clarifies, voice carefully neutral. Even if his Shinigami is listening, it probably won't pick up on the implications of Mail's query.

It is terribly intelligent, but it hates him now. And hatred is as blinding as love.

"Eh, all he does is shout at me and throw things," Mail replies.

"It is still more than anyone else can do for him," L says, and then lowers his voice to a whisper. "Have you followed all the other instructions I gave you?"

"Yes. Everything is done," Mail assures him.

"Good."

Then, Naomi's email account is purged. There is no way for anyone to ever find the minute details that would reveal the messages as being fake. And the phone company has deleted all records of the call in which L told Mail to create them.

Rae is safe. Rae will never find out. Even if L wanted it to, he'd have no chance of ever proving his case.

_Good._

"Then, was there something else that you wanted, M? You don't usually seek me out."

"M, huh," Mail snorts. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. Faux-Kira was really Takada all along, right?"

L swallows.

"Yes. I lied to you. I realise that this must be difficult for-"

"I don't care about _that_," Mail snaps. "But Takada is definitely listed as being in hell, right? The Tracking Library said so. You even went back to check, didn't you?"

There is no point in telling anyone else that he's been locked out of the library. Rae knows – or at least, _presumably _Rae saw what happened to him – but it has declined to speak to him ever since they left for Washington.

"Yes. She was listed before, and she is still listed now," L tells him.

"And you doubtlessly have theories about why she showed up _here_, right?"

That's more than ten consecutive sentences without a single swear word. Mail must be feeling particularly human today.

L has no idea how to respond to that. Mail is the _last_ person that he wants to talk to about redemption, because Mail really doesn't need to hold on to such damaging hopes.

"Well, I think-"

"I don't care what they are. I just want to know…is there…is there any chance that he could come back?"

L lifts his head, and sees that Mail is still as pale and drawn as ever. And he is actually _shaking_.

_Of course. Of course this has been on your mind. _

_And I hadn't even considered it, because I've been so busy with Rae and the hell-god and Naomi. _

_I'm sorry._

"No," L replies, with certainty. "No. Takada was an isolated incident. Mello cannot ever come back."

For a moment, Mail is silent. His expression does not change. Never changes.

But that makes sense. He never really had hope. And he was practically begging L not to give him any.

"Yeah," Mail replies gruffly. "That's what I figured."

* * *

Mail heads back to his office, neither happy nor sad nor relieved.

_Of course not. Of course._

Mello is still gone, vanished from the world forever. Everything is as it always was. Unchanged. Mail trusts L, because he has to. Because L is the only familiar thing left.

And L trusts Mail.

He trusts Mail, and he almost _never_ checks up on Mail, and he's preoccupied right now, anyway. So he'll probably never find out that Mail didn't delete those emails, and preserved a copy of their phone conversation.

Mail shove an unlit cigarette into his mouth, and locks his computer before wandering off to find Raye.

Naomi cannot come back to life. Mello cannot escape hell. No matter what they do, neither of them can be with the one they want.

But one day, L may change his mind.

And if he does, Mail wants him to have the option of undoing what he has done.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. :)

+ I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up. it's the end of an arc, so I need to sit and think and plot out the next bit. unfortunately, I'm not the brightest person in the world, so this may take a little while. estimated time of next update is probably two to three weeks.


	50. Measure

notes/warnings

+ swearing/grief/misdirected anger.

+ this is the fiftieth chapter! and yet practically nothing happens! yay!

* * *

**Measure**

The door to Raye's room is unlocked. Mail pushes it aside and ambles over to sit on the floor by the window.

Raye notices him almost immediately.

"Where did you go?" he demands.

"I was speaking with L," Mail informs him, and braces himself for the inevitable barrage of L-directed hatred and spite.

But Raye stays silent, staring at Mail with bleary, unfocused eyes.

"Oh," he says, eventually. "I see."

* * *

It is probably safe to presume that Mail and Raye have also forgotten parts of the Takada case already, but L ought to ask them later just to be sure. It is possible that the hell-god affects people to varying extents, and with various amounts of speed.

_Why not me, then?_

It doesn't make any sense that the hell-god is deliberately leaving his mind intact. Which means that he must have blocked her, somehow. Or perhaps there is some wall between them, meaning that he is as unattainable to her as she is to him?

_Such a concept is bordering on ridiculous, though. I'm not particularly special. I'm not even particularly intelligent._

So, what, then? Is the death note protecting him?

That doesn't make any sense either. Takada had a note in her own hell, and it didn't help her to escape the hell-god's clutches. And if the death note was really some sort of mind-control repellant, then surely Rae's memory wouldn't be affected, either. And Rae has definitely forgotten certain parts of the Holland case.

_Perhaps she simply…cannot be bothered with me?_

L spins idly on his chair. He feels weak and light-headed, and he keeps thinking in circles.

This isn't something he can tackle. Not yet. Not on his own. Perhaps, if he encounters another person in hell, he will have another opportunity.

_That's what Grianna does, isn't it? _

_How long has she been searching?_

And on top of everything else, Rae is still convinced that he will use the notebook. That he will be_ forced_ to use it, and not because of his attachment to his Shinigami.

Why? What would be the point in him using it? He refuses to kill out of anger, or hatred, or judgment, because he refuses to emulate Light. And what is the point of mercy-killing someone? If they are a good person, all they'll do is end up in the next world. And if someone needs relief from pain or suffering, then they can choose death for themselves. L doesn't need to intervene.

The only scenario in which he can even envisage himself writing down a name would be if Light came back. Rae has repeatedly told him that such a thing cannot happen, but then, Rae is obviously uninformed about certain aspects of the afterlife, so L cannot be confident in its assurances.

And if Rae is banking on L using the notebook to defeat Light, then it might even have lied to him deliberately.

_The death note can be tied to an event, even if I don't know when it will occur._

Is that what Rae is counting on? That he'll write down Light's name on the condition that Light will one day show up in this world? And then he'll get proof of that by whether Rae becomes king or not?

L has to admit that the thought of such peace of mind is sorely tempting. But if that is Rae's plan, then Rae must be confident that Light _will_ show up. After all, it desperately wants to be king.

Although, what was it Rae had said?

'_You don't use it to kill innocent people. Not using it at all is better than using it out of spite, or greed, or revenge.'_

So it has some standards, at least.

Or it is just a really good liar.

Either way, the probability of Light actually appearing in the second world are somewhere between ten and fifty percent.

And holy hell, that's a _huge_ range. L is _never_ this vague. Too many variables. Everything has too many variables, and he feels.

He feels.

The tray of scones is still sitting on the table. They're stale, and dry, and crumbly to touch, but L breaks off a piece anyway and shoves it into his mouth.

_Food_.

He's been hungry for _so_ long. There have been so many things. More important things. Rae and Naomi and Raye and Light and Watari and the hell-god and _everything_. He needs to be as functional as possible. He needs.

The scone tastes awful. Reluctantly, L reaches for more.

* * *

This place isn't any good now, either.

The darkness is stifling, and the air is too thick. Raye feels ill. And he is thoroughly sick of looking at Naomi's clothes, and shoes, and possessions. Without her, they're just meaningless objects. Pointless trash. Raye wants to incinerate them all. He wants to be free from this place. But outside isn't any better, he knows that, he _knows_! He is trapped. Drifting, anchorless, unable to make sense of anything.

He can't even _grieve_ properly any more. It's like he's worn out all of his emotional resources. She is the debilitating absence in his world, and he has already run out of tears to shed. There isn't anything but her.

Mail's phone goes off, and the unexpected noise is both jarring and renewing. A momentary distraction. Raye is the worst person in the world for wanting to escape.

"Hang on," Mail mutters. "I'll ask him. Raye?"

Mail looks right at him, with flat emotionless eyes, and Raye realises just how disgusting he feels, all sweat and grease and slobber and tears. The bed stinks. Mail stinks. He hates this place.

"What?" he grunts.

"L thinks it's time-"

"I don't give a _fuck_ what he thinks!"

"…that we do something for your wife," Mail finishes, steadily. "He says that if you haven't thought about it already, you need to. He also says that he'll arrange anything that you want. Money is no object, of course."

"Watari," Raye murmurs, narrowing his eyes.

"Huh?"

"Watari," he clarifies. "This is Watari's doing, not L's. L doesn't have this sort of _compassion_."

Mail raises one eyebrow at him.

"Actually, he does," he replies, quietly.

"_Fuck_ that. Did you see what he did? To his own…his own…"

"He was the one who looked after me, remember?" Mail says, sharply.

"Not everything is fucking about _you_," Raye snarls. "You think you have it so much harder than everyone else, but you _don't_. You're not special. Fuck off and leave me alone."

"Fine," Mail replies, his voice still strangely even. "You don't need to ask twice."

He slams the door when he leaves, and Raye feels briefly satisfied.

* * *

Raye feels satisfied for roughly twenty seconds. But the room is dank and huge and empty, and Naomi has been _everywhere_. They had sex on the fucking dresser, once, and now Raye can't stop looking at it. He feels swallowed up and claustrophobic. He feels like he's rotting from the inside out.

So many things he should have said. And there is no escape.

Mail is piss-poor company, but it's even worse without him.

_Stops you from going completely mad_.

In a rush of adrenaline, Raye gets up clumsily, fumbles with the door, and staggers into the blindingly lit, too-clean hallway.

_Fuck this_.

Nothing is different.

He finds his way to Mail's office with one hand over his eyes.

"What do _you_ want?" Mail asks, sounding exasperated. It's been less than a minute since Raye cussed him out, after all.

And Raye still loathes him for existing. For supporting L. For everything. But he's a real person, and he exists outside of the confines of Raye's tortured mind. He is something other than a memorial to Naomi, and that's. That's good. Maybe.

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

His wife is dead. He should be able to mourn for _months_ without stopping.

_Memorial to Naomi_.

"I want," he says, and then stops to think. "I want…I want to bury her. I don't want her to burn. I don't want her to hurt any more. And I want…flowers, I think. And some sort of message."

Mail's expression softens a little.

"All right," he murmurs. "Do you want any help with it?"

* * *

"There's a call for you on mobile six," Watari announces pleasantly.

L frowns.

_Aside from being the point of contact with Grint Street Police Station, that particular phone hasn't been used in the past year_.

L wonders if something has happened with one of Takada's accomplices.

"Patch it through to my office," L replies. "And bring me a pot of honey, please."

L would usually have Watari screen his calls, but Watari's mind is not presently reliable. And it's not as if L has anything better to do.

"Hello?"

"Hello, L. How are you?"

The syntax and voice filter are disturbingly familiar. L feels his chest tighten, his muscles tense.

_You. _

_What are you doing calling me again?_

"Mister…Buzz, wasn't it?" he replies, as calmly as possible. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to speak to L, please."

There isn't any way they can trace the call. L is safe. As long as he limits how long he keeps the connection open, he is safe.

"So why did you call me, then?" he asks, bluntly. As far as Buzz is concerned, he is Bert Smith. And Smith isn't known to have even had contact with L.

"Because I believe that you are either him, or working for him. Either way, there's a fairly good chance he's monitoring this call right now."

_You can't possibly be Light._

_Please._

"That would make two nosy detectives following me," L drawls. "I doubt it very much."

"I see."

Buzz's mechanical voice trails off into a polite silence. L finds himself analyzing every word, every syllable, every nuance, desperately trying to convince himself that it can't be Light.

_Light would enjoy talking to me anonymously like this, though. If he's feeling confident enough, then he might spend months just contacting me occasionally, frightening me a little more each time, and not revealing his identity until I'm completely vulnerable and disturbed_.

"Since I am not your L, I wish to request that you don't call me again," L continues. "I need to keep this line available for business purposes."

"I'm afraid that isn't all," Buzz tells him. "I have one more question for you, Detective Smith."

"Please make it brief, Detective…ah…"

"Buzz will do just fine."

_Damn you_, L thinks. If it is Light, then Light must know who he is. Light wouldn't waste his time chasing anyone else like this, not while L is still alive. If Light is in this world, then he'll be forced to seek L and destroy him. He enjoyed it too much last time to deny himself that pleasure for long.

_If he kills me, and I manage to stop him in the process, then I've still won. I've still protected the world from him, so I've still won._

_And he won't understand that point of view, because he doesn't understand what it is to not be selfish._

Is that L's only defense? To self-destruct?

Maybe he'd get to see Naomi again.

"Detective Buzz. It sounds a little like the title of a tacky magazine," L quips.

"Perhaps. Anyway, I have seen the news, and it seems that faux-Kira has been killed, and her army taken into custody," Buzz says blithely. "Tell me, Detective Smith, did you win, or did you lose?"

L fumbles almost drops the handset.

_What?_

_What sort of a question is that to ask?_

_Winning. Losing._

_There's no denying it, you sound like Light. _

L used to think like that too, when he was younger. When he was still alive, and thought he could never be beaten. But Light…Light never grew up. Light just grew more evil.

"I…I don't know what you mean," he says, gruffly.

"Did you actually manage to defeat faux-Kira, or did the situation just suddenly resolve?" Buzz elaborates. "It seems the news has already stopped focusing on that case, which is unusual given the recency and scale of the crime."

_You…you have some immunity to the hell-god_, L thinks. It's true that his team hasn't yet completely forgotten Takada, but none of them have been able to recognise the strangeness in the media, either.

It makes sense, if Buzz is Light. Light was at least as smart as L. And that would indicate that intelligence is somehow protective against the hell-god. L might be able to use that to his advantage, somehow.

Or is it determination? Glory-seeking? Some other trait they both shared?

No. L and Light have nothing in common. Not now. L has gone out of his way to become a different person.

If Buzz is Light.

Sixty-three percent probability. Frighteningly good odds. If Buzz is someone else, then they ought to pool their resources together against the hell-god. But L cannot do that without first admitting to being L. Buzz has set this up perfectly.

And he can't. He can't take that risk. Buzz might be Light. And if he is Light, then he's counting on it.

"Faux-Kira was captured by agents of L," he says, curtly. "As you ought to know, Buzz. Have you only come to rub my failure in my face? And what do you _mean_, 'just suddenly resolve'?"

There is another pause.

"I see," Buzz says, thoughtfully. "Thank you. That is all I wanted to know. Perhaps we shall meet in person someday, Detective Smith."

Buzz hangs up with a jolly-sounding _click_, and L feels inexplicably cold in the temperature-controlled office.

_Meet in person?_

_Was that a threat, Light?_

_If you come back now, Rae might take your side_.

_Rae will definitely take your side_.

That was the one thing Light couldn't do last time. He couldn't turn someone L loved against him, because L didn't care for anyone else.

Now, though. Now he loves Rae. And Rae hates him. And Rae definitely still supports the original Kira, despite the fact that it seems to loathe all of his followers.

_So, really, we never would have worked out._

But, if Rae had continued to care for him, maybe L could have changed its mind. Now, it is too late. And that's fine.

Light is L's burden to bear. If Light comes back, L will deal with him. He will protect society from him one more time, and that will be enough. If Rae despises him, if Rae watches over Light's shoulder as L dies, if Rae spits on his corpse, then L will accept all of that.

L's job is to save people. Not to be comfortable. Not to be happy. Not to fall in love. To _save people_.

And he is not yet defeated.

* * *

"Lilies," Raye says, decisively. "White lilies. For purity. It's what she'd want."

He's contemplated every possible flower and colour combination, laboring to find the perfect representation of Naomi.

"Wouldn't she prefer a bouquet of guns, really?" Mail deadpans.

Raye glares at him sourly.

Because, yes.

Yes, she would. She was never the fragile, adoring, lovestruck wife Raye wanted. She never had time for things like flowers. But she's fucking dead now, and Raye is going to fucking give her flowers because it's the last chance he'll ever fucking get.

"If I want your opinion," he says, viciously, "I will ask for it."

"Okay," Mail replies. "Lilies it is. They aren't in season, but we're not exactly short on money. What about the headstone?"

And Raye hates him. Raye hates him for being _good_ at this, for being the perfect widower, for being able to genuinely grieve for years on end. But more than that, Raye hates him for his stupid, fairytale-tragic romance. He hates the fact that Mail got to go and throw roses into the sea and weep and somehow have it actually be relevant to the one he lost.

And he hates him for never actually having a relationship with Mello, because in a way, that must make things a lot easier. When Raye thinks of his wife, he remembers her flaws and their arguments and a problem-filled, _ordinary _marriage. He can't put her up on the pedestal where he wants her.

"We can't put her name on it," Raye says, grudgingly. "There's…there's still a risk that someone might use that against us."

It's sickening that he's thinking of the team at a time like this. He doesn't even belong here. He _hates _L, and he hates this life.

But what the hell else is he going to do?

Right here, right now, this is good. This is something useful that he can do for Naomi. He can leave the bed and sit up straight and walk around the building and honestly say it's for _her_.

And not go back to that room.

Raye wishes he could just plan her funeral forever.

"We could use an abbreviation, though. Or an alias," Mail muses. "And there's room for some sort of message, too. Have you decided on the location yet?"

Raye wonders if Mail is trying to live vicariously through him. He never got to bury Mello – _ha_ – and he never got to properly say goodbye.

But he's useful, right now. And he's the only one in the building with any real sense of empathy. And he's better than Raye's own company.

"Somewhere with a good view," Raye replies.

She'd like that.

He's pretty sure, anyway.

* * *

That afternoon, someone blows up a train in Glasgow. Nineteen dead, a whopping eighty-six people injured.

And what does the great detective do? He, who apparently cares so much about humanity? He sits in his office, and eats pineapple upside-down cake. And does _nothing_.

Because L doesn't care about saving people. That's just an excuse. All he wants is fame and power, and he'll do anything to get it.

_Evil_.

Rae knew it all along, of course. And despite being unable to question witnesses, collect samples, or make phone calls, it is still ten thousand times the detective L will ever be. Ten thousand times the hero.

_The world is lucky it has me_.

Rae changes the laptop password, and hides it in the attic. Just in case. L won't ever get a single shred of information out of it ever again.

A railway hijacking isn't a particularly unusual event, but Rae will visit the scene of the crime, anyway. The concept of getting away from this festering place is undeniably attractive.

Rae accidentally runs into L in the hall. The man is as insipid-looking as always, hunched and thin and filthy despite his recent shower.

_Why did I ever take you seriously?_

_You're just a waste of everybody's time._

Rae doesn't make eye contact. Doesn't bother with an insult or an accusation. It was fun, at the beginning, to see L squirm and cower. It was fun to hurt him, just for the sake of it. It was fun to be the monster under his bed. Comfortable, to just relax and be the sadistic sociopath that Rae was never able to be before.

Now, though, it's just boring and pointless. L will do exactly what Rae wants him to do. And then he'll die.

_Just like everyone else that gets in my way_.

And that's fine. L isn't worth so much as a second glance.

"Good evening, Shinigami," he says, softly.

_Hello, L. Did you know that you're going to die, soon? Did you know that you'll never be able to stop me?_

_Did you know?_

L doesn't know anything at all, of course. L is _stupid_, and Rae flies right past him.

* * *

L calls again. Gets the answering machine again.

"_Hello, this is the Tracking Library. Our staff are unavailable right now. Please note that records cannot be given out over the phone. If you have another request, leave a message after the tone."_

He hangs up abruptly. He's not really sure what else he was expecting.

* * *

The funeral is a sombre one, which is unusual in the second world. Raye speaks, voice wavering and strained, but he mentions nothing of hope, nothing of the possibility of a third world.

Privately, Mail judges him for that. If he really, truly loved her, then he'd do anything just to be near her. He'd take that chance. He'd die, because then they _might_ be together again.

But Raye has never been able to understand his own fucking _privilege_. Or maybe, deep down, he wants a break. He wants to live life without Naomi, just once.

Mail can't forgive him for that, either.

Mail clutches his rosary, which has been worn away to three beads, a broken cross, and a piece of decaying string.

Just once, then. Just once, for someone else.

It can't hurt, can it?

_Please look after her. God. Whoever you are. Please take care of Naomi._

_Please look after Mello, as well. Let them both be happy._

Raye is crouched on the ground, one hand clutching at the cool, dark earth, the other hand fisted in the sleeve of Mail's jacket.

This is the first time in almost six years that Mail has been able to truly relate to someone else. Raye doesn't want to be alone right now. Contact with another human being doesn't ease the pain at all, but without it, one becomes psychotic, nightmare-riddled and tormented.

Still, Mail _hates_ being touched. He turns his head to hide his grimace.

The Shinigami isn't here. Nobody is here, except the three of them. L is standing a good six feet away, staring at the ground. His mask slips a little, and he pushes it back into place with his fingertips. His eye is red. Fuck. He's not taking Naomi's death any better than Raye.

_You really cared for her, didn't you?_

L is practically isolated now. Mail is the only member of his team left who doesn't hate him. Matsuda, and Naomi and Wedy and that little girl, they've all gone on ahead of him.

If L died, everything would be better for him. If Raye died, he'd be with his wife again.

They have _options_, the stupid bastards. They're just not fucking acknowledging them!

_Hate you both_.

Mail watches as Raye covertly glances at their boss, and loses his place in the verse when he sees that L is crying.

* * *

When they get back to base, Raye feels completely lost.

_Naomi is laid to rest. Everything is done._

_Now what?_

How much longer does he has to stay in that room? When will it be okay for him to do some work again? If he doesn't grieve for long enough, he's disrespecting Naomi.

_My life, my love._

_I'm sorry._

And he _is_ still sad. He's still broken. He's empty and scared and alone and he's never going to have anything that he wanted and isn't that _enough_? Can't he _do something_ now?

What would the others think, if he took on a case?

_The others_.

Mail is sitting in one corner of the room, staring out the window.

And L.

L wept.

For Naomi. For her.

Raye has been wracking his mind all afternoon, but he still cannot think of a single reason why L would have pretended to cry.

_So, you cared for her._

_Well, fuck you._

_She's gone._

_You sent her to her death, and now she's GONE._

Raye is angry. Trembling with rage and _blame _and some warped sense of victory.

L is hurting.

L is _hurting_.

"You all right?" Mail asks. He makes the same enquiry every fifteen minutes or so.

L is a fucking asshole, but Raye has nowhere else to go. Like it or not, this is his home. Because this was Naomi's home.

"Not really," he answers, carefully. If he sounds too functional, Mail will be disgusted with him. After all, Mail _still_ isn't 'all right'.

Fuck. When did Mail's opinion become so fucking important, anyway?

"That's to be expected."

"Yeah," Raye replies. "But I…I think I should stay here. I…I don't think I should leave."

"Ah," Mail says, attempting a smile and failing miserably. "Yeah. Naomi would probably be pleased to hear that."

* * *

Mail has become the barometer for the grieving process, Raye realizes. If he says that something is okay, then it's okay.

"Do you think it would be okay for me to clean our room?" he blurts out. "It's just…Naomi always hated dirt and mess."

Just being in here is making him feel grimy and revolting.

And…it _is_ an insult to Naomi's memory, to keep her things in such a state of disarray, and filth.

Mail hesitates in the doorway.

"Uh…sure," he says quietly. "I guess."

_It will take weeks to sort out all of Naomi's belongings, _Raye muses.

It's the most comforting thought he's had all day.

* * *

It's strange, this sensation of knowing exactly what someone else is feeling. Not that Mail would _ever_ have wished his predicament on anyone else, of course, but he feels a strange kinship with Raye nonetheless.

Still. It's not as if they're in the same situation. Not at all.

_You are bound to see her again. I will never see him again_.

Raye upends another of Naomi's jewelry boxes, and Mail attempts to leave the room unnoticed.

He badly needs a cigarette.

"I was thinking about wearing one of her rings on a chain around my neck," Raye says, thoughtfully. "What do you think?"

_What do I think? You're the one who was fuckin' married to her_.

But Mail gets it. It's like the rosary. Raye wants something with him, all of the time. And Mail_ can't_ walk away from this.

L never walked away from him.

So Mail goes and sits next to Raye, and tries to forget about his clamoring nicotine addiction, or the fact that Raye only seems to ask him questions when he's trying to leave.

* * *

The queen doesn't show up, Buzz doesn't call again, and Rae is barely ever around. L puts himself through a rigorous physical training program, just for something to do.

After all, he's the only one left who knows capoeira, now.

* * *

When life becomes doubtful, it is best to invest oneself in the stable and the grounded. Jas watches L closely, takes pride in every call he makes to the tracking library, counts his tears, and admires his strength of mind.

_Your team is crumbling around you, and still you don't give up._

She's only made one mistake. L has made thousands.

If he can do it, then she can do it.

Very well. Then, she will go on being strong, too. She will fight her desire for Mello, her emotional exhaustion, her loathing for certain humans. She will be the fair and just god of hell, for all eternity.

Just as long as L stays strong.

* * *

With newfound enthusiasm, Raye sorts and stores Naomi's wedding dress, her favourite shoes, her beloved guns.

_I'm doing this and I'm doing this for her and everything is all right, right now_.

But the room gets cleaner and cleaner, and he finds an old brown jacket that she _hated_, and a business card from the Indian place across the street, and and and…

_What if that franchise isn't in the third world?_

_We used to get the garlic luchi as a side-dish, and it was always the best part of the meal._

Raye doubles over, suddenly weak. It's such a stupid thing, such a pathetic ridiculous thought, but that's the _point_. They were _married_, their lives were supposed to be domestic and monotonous and now he's _stuck in this place with people who don't care about him_.

Raye feels his throat ache, his vision go blurry with tears. He howls into the carpet, unintelligibly miserable and frightened, shaking and unable to stop.

He hurts, damnit. He _hurts_.

"Yeah," Mail says gently. "I know."

* * *

L thumbs his lip, and regards the kettle-sized bowl of parfait on his desk.

All the sugar in the universe isn't any use if he doesn't have something to _work_ on. He's been through all of his training regimes. The world is strangely quiet.

_Is this your doing, hell-god?_

No, the thought is ridiculous. Matsuda described a similar effect in the first world, after Light was finally destroyed. The criminal population has been decimated. Those that remain are still wary of drawing attention to themselves.

That won't last long, of course. They'll forget about faux-Kira, and the crime rate will climb, and L will find some other psychotic mastermind to battle.

But…until then…

L takes the death note from its holster under his shirt, and places it in front of him.

If he wrote a name down right now, his Shinigami would be able to get away from him. The note is the only thing that joins them.

_The only thing left._

And Rae…Rae would be happy to leave. No, Rae would be _relieved_. Right now, it is avoiding him as much as it can, and it seems to disappear from the building completely for long periods of time. It is clearly still suffering from L's apparent treachery, and for that, he is sorry.

But no. He cannot write in the notebook. Not even now. Not even for Rae.

Misa wrote for the one she loved, and she still became a monster. A puppet-monster, but a monster nonetheless. Love, adoration, kinship. Such motives are no less dangerous than Light's own power-hunger and greed. The only motive that would be even remotely acceptable would be some sort of mercy-killing. Kindness. Benevolence. A death from which nothing could ever be gained – not even peace of mind – except for the victim themselves.

But no-one needs to be in the third world that badly. L has no reason to believe it would be any different to the second world.

His chest feels strangely bare, without the familiar leather pressed against it. He will have to get used to that, when the five years are up.

Soon. A matter of months now, and _oh god how did he manage to forget that?_

L stares at the notebook with a mounting sense of horror. When…when Rae leaves, he will no longer be the owner of the death note. He won't be able to see Rae. He won't be able to _remember_ Rae, or any of this. Anything they had. Anything they might have been. He will have never had a Shinigami of his own, and he will have never fallen in love.

_No._

_No, that is not okay_.

Deftly, almost reflexively, L opens up to the middle of the notebook and tears a thin piece of paper from the edge. The strip is no wider than a fingernail, slightly longer than a pencil.

_If I keep a part of it, then my memories won't decay_.

Those are the rules. L knows the rules.

He tucks the pilfered piece of paper into the compartment in his belt buckle. A security measure. L doesn't ever want to forget.

It's not as if Rae will ever know.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading.

+ I'm not certain of the timing of the next update, hopefully a maximum of two weeks, though.

+ thank you.


	51. Understanding

notes/warnings

+ remember this fic? the one that hasn't been updated in like 2304823 years? here's the next chapter!

+ warnings for swearing, grief, illness. also, warning for nothing much happening. :/

* * *

**Understanding**

After following several of the Glasgow-bombing survivors, peering at numerous police records, and spending two days at the local police-training facility researching explosives, Rae is finally able to pinpoint the person responsible and…

_Now what?_

* * *

Raye packs up Naomi's belongings, unpacks them again, arranges them, arranges to have them burned, cancels that appointment, polishes and cleans everything, and packs them back up again.

Finally, he digs out some of her old reference books.

"Do you think it would be okay if I studied these?" he asks Mail, loudly.

Mail grinds his teeth in frustration. It's been _five weeks_, and he hasn't had any time to himself. He can't…he can't keep _doing_ this. He doesn't like people and he doesn't like fuckin' Raye.

But he understands. He does.

He must understand.

"Naomi would probably want that," he says, grudgingly.

She probably would. The team was important to her. L was important to her. Other than that, Mail knows almost nothing about her, and he doesn't get all. The. Fucking. _Questions. _

"Okay, good. That's what I'll do."

Raye doesn't look like Mail looks. He still shaves. He still washes. He still eats at least once a day. Mail can't really expect more than that from him. He didn't lose _Mello_, after all.

"Good," he grunts. "I'm going to the balcony for a smoke. If you follow me, I will fuckin' punch you."

Raye glares at him, and Mail doesn't care.

Raye comes to get him after five fucking minutes anyway.

* * *

L takes on a case that is really below his qualifications. A serial thief, who only targets well-off households and small businesses. No casualties. No evidence of identity theft. Just stealing money and siphoning credit cards and moving on to the next victim, over and over.

L can only agonise over being miserable and alone for so long. Eventually, even a medium-sized case is sufficient. And it's actually difficult to progress, because none of the relevant police forces are invested enough to help him out.

And…he doesn't have Rae.

Sometimes he still forgets. Sometimes he still asks a question to the empty room, and waits for a prompt, intelligent answer that is never going to come. Sometimes he still dreams about Rae's fingers wrapped around his wrist, instead of the weight of the chain.

But then L remembers that Rae is going to be okay, now.

Rae is going to be okay, even if he isn't. Even if Rae looks right through him every time they pass, even if it never bothers to even insult or accuse him ever again. Even if it kills him in the end, sends him to hell, he has _still_ saved it.

And that has to be enough.

So he slogs through the case, and catches glimpses of Rae when he can, and every so often, he makes that phone call.

"_Hello, this is the Tracking Library. Our staff are unavailable right now. Please note that records cannot be given out over the phone. If you have another request, leave a message after the tone."_

What is the point of having a phone number if nobody ever answers?

* * *

This is troublesome. A Shinigami cannot significantly interfere with the human world other than by use of a death note.

Meaning that Rae cannot actually bring the Glasgow bomber to justice without the help of a human.

And L is unlikely to hand the notebook over so that Rae can find a _trustworthy, decent_ human being to help it solve cases.

So what are the options? Mail is still more or less allied to L, Watari is definitely allied to L, and Raye is presently incapable of doing much at all.

Rae grits its teeth. It knew, of course. It knew at the very beginning that it would be difficult to judge and dispose of criminals during these five years. Just like it knew that it would be stuck with the insufferable, immoral, self-absorbed, torture-happy L. And that it would have to pretend to be someone else. But it's hard, still, seeing it happen. It's hard knowing that innocent people will be hurt, again and again, if Rae doesn't _do something_.

_Not long, now. Not long to go_.

As it turns out, some unimportant human detective eventually finds and arrests the suspect, and Rae has to go looking for something else to do.

And…it keeps an eye on Raye Penber, and his delicate frame of mind.

Because sooner or later, he'll break.

And when he does, Rae will be there.

* * *

L catches the serial pickpocket, fails to crack a pedophile ring, and helps a handful of Scottish detectives apprehend a pair of serial killers. Husband and wife.

He tries not to wonder if perhaps one of the murderers was coerced into a life of crime by the other. He tries not to think about Rem. About Rebecca.

_She's safe, now._

_She must be safe._

L also tries not to wonder whether one of the detectives might secretly be Buzz. Secretly be _Light_.

Worrying about an unpredictable future is almost as pointless as worrying about the dead. If Light is going to show up, then there is nothing L can do to change that. Because if Light does show up, it will be at the behest of the hell-god.

Still, he can't help but feel uneasy. Back in the first world, during the Kira case, L was never truly _frightened_ of Light. Not until the very end. After all, L had come up against so many criminals, so much _evil_, and he'd always succeeded. But then the handcuffs were undone and the bells started ringing and Light had _won, _and everything was lost. And L was truly terrified, clinging to his own fragile life, desperate for the comfort and support he'd never needed, that nobody had ever bothered to offer.

Now would be the ideal time for Light to return. L has almost no supporters at all. Watari is unreliable, Raye loathes him, and Mail is heavily preoccupied.

_It would be just like last time. You could make everyone love you, and then destroy me. Right in front of them. And somehow, they'd still love you afterwards, too_.

If the number of worlds - of afterlives - is truly endless, then perhaps Light will try to conquer each of them sequentially. One by one. Arrive in the second world, vanquish L, destroy countless lives, be eventually defeated, arrive in the third world, do it all again.

Then, anything L tries to build will be inevitably and mercilessly shattered. All he will ever have is the few short years between his own death and Light's, before everything is ripped out from under him again.

He has to hope. He has to hope the hell-god holds onto Light and never sets him free. That Buzz is someone else, some cocky new detective. Some malevolent villain, even. Anyone else. Please. Anyone else.

If he and Rae could have remained friends, then there would be someone on L's team that Light could never defeat.

Friends.

They were almost more than friends. But that is irrelevant, now, and L would very much like to be able to stop thinking about the matter entirely. About how comfortable he'd felt in Rae's arms, about how he'd wanted to bottle that safety, that companionship, and steep in it for the rest of his life. About how he still hates the idea of being alone, forever, now that he's had a taste of…

_Enough_.

Enough, enough.

_Oh god, I miss you._

Enough.

Yesterday, he did nothing but call the Tracking Library once every five minutes. For twenty four hours. Two hundred and eighty-eight phone calls. On a weekday. There is no good reason for library staff to be so completely unavailable for such an extended period of time.

And he used thirty-one different phone lines, including one of Mail's mobiles. So it's not as if they've just happened to block his number.

If the hell-god is involved, though, she'll be able to block him absolutely.

Still, it would be pertinent to at least leave a message. Perhaps they just never answer the phone, and elect to return calls instead?

"_Hello, this is the Tracking Library. Our staff are unavailable right now. Please note that records cannot be given out over the phone. If you have another request, leave a message after the tone."_

L knows exactly what he wants to say; which alias is best, which contact number he wants to leave, every last detail. But the tone never comes. The recorded message disconnects immediately after the last syllable.

He cannot leave a message.

L lets the handset fall to the ground. The hell-god is as involved in this as she is everything else. And there is nothing he can do about it.

_Please, just don't let him come back._

* * *

It's been long enough now, right?

It has to have been long enough. Raye is at the point where he desperately _wants_ to take on a case; for Naomi, for the world, for his own damn sanity.

And because…because this is _his_ job, too. He might have only started working here for Naomi's sake, but this has still been the entirety of his life for the past eight years. And he wants to save people. He wants to feel like he can do something useful.

Yeah. It's been long enough. Raye spent the entire night composing the question. He must get everything exactly right.

Because he cannot do this without Mail's approval.

The younger man is sitting on the desk, tapping furiously at his laptop, the rosary threaded through his fingers. If he were anyone else, Raye would presume that he'd forgotten it was there at all.

But Mail doesn't ever forget. Perfect fucking widower.

Raye sets his textbook down, and steels his nerves as best he can.

"Hey," he says, gruffly. "I've been thinking."

He doesn't try to sound casual. He doesn't want to give Mail any reason to think him flippant or indifferent. Because Naomi was his fucking life, and he needs someone else to know that. He needs someone else to _care. _He can't do this on his own.

He's never been any good on his own.

She was always so much stronger than he was.

"About what?" Mail asks, without looking up.

"I want to try working on a case, again," Raye tells him, and shit, was that exactly how he meant to say it? It sounds a heck of a lot more selfish out loud than it did inside his head. "For her. Because she can't, and I can. It's what Naomi would want. I know it is."

Mail frowns at him.

_Oh, fuck. _

_Is this not okay?_

_Is it fucking still not okay?_

"Oh," he says, quietly. "Ah. Right."

"It's not that I want to," Raye reiterates, quietly. "It will be hard. But…she would want it this way."

"Yeah," Mail says, distantly. "That…that makes sense. You should talk to L about it."

Raye breathes deeply. He's okay with it. Grudgingly, but okay. Good. Raye is reasonably sure that this is what Naomi would want. She'd want him to be brave. She'd want him to keep going. And since her murderer is already dead, the only way to move is forwards.

Raye isn't going to forget her. He's going to fight for her. He feels….better. Not alright, not functional, but better. Less bad.

But then Mail gets up, and walks out, and slams the door, and the walls are suddenly closing in again, and Raye doesn't even know where he's _going_.

* * *

Mail strides into L's office, and lets the door swing closed behind him.

The place is a mess; there are piles of plates and wrappers covering most of the floor, there is icing smeared on the desk, and there are tea-stains on L's shirt.

Mail wonders, absently, if he's grieving for Rae as well as Naomi.

"What is it?" L asks softly.

Mail hesitates.

"It's Raye," he blurts out. "He's. He's. I'm not sure I can fuckin' do this."

Because he really needs some fuckin' _space._

From Raye, who is around all the time. And Mail _told_ him it was better not to be alone, because that's what L told _him_. But this is absolutely fuckin' ridiculous. Mail never needed L every hour of the day, every day of the week. Mail never really needed L at _all_.

And now, Raye wants to start catching criminals again.

When Mail first arrived in the second world, it took L six fucking _months_ to convince him to even _help_ with a case. And he knew, he _knew_ that was what Mello would have wanted from him, but he physically just couldn't fuckin' pull himself together enough to _do it_.

Raye isn't grieving like Mail grieved. Raye isn't making any _sense_.

"Penber?" L clarifies.

"Yes. I don't fuckin' understand him at all."

And the thing was, Mail was certain that he _would_. Raye's lost the one he loves. His situation is more temporary, certainly, but right now they're in the same damn position.

He ought to be able to predict Raye's every word, every move. This is the one thing he _knows_, damnit!

"I'm sorry," L offers. His expression is sympathetic, and a little lost. When he had sat by Mail's bed every night for half a year, Mail had ended up hating the sight of his fucking face.

Now he just looks familiar and tired, like a worn-out pair of jeans. And Mail has not the emotional reserve to be kind to him.

"He wants to start working again," Mail tells him. And maybe L isn't even going to _get this_, and Mail isn't sure he'll be able to explain.

"You've taken very good care of him for an extended period of time," L says, delicately. "You are not expected to support him indefinitely, you know."

"But," Mail says, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. "But. What? Does this mean he's over her? Just like _that_?"

"I very much doubt it. You of all people ought to know that every person has different ways of grieving."

_Yes_, Mail thinks, irritably. _But I thought he'd be the same. He seemed to be the same. I thought I understood someone._

_I thought someone understood me._

Why does this matter so much, then? It's not like he fucking cares about the world outside of Mello and L and his own misery. It's…it's not as if he wants to be normal. It's not like he _wants_ Raye to suffer and mourn forever, he just.

He just.

_There isn't anyone in the world as unlucky as me, is there?_

He's not sure what he wants at all, now. He's not sure what he came here to say.

"Yeah," he grunts. "Good point. You got any new jobs for me?"

He needs something to occupy his mind while he's babysitting a grown man. Sometimes Raye is so irksome that Mail cannot properly meditate on Mello, or pray, or wallow in anguish.

Taking on cases is what they do, he supposes.

He still doesn't _like_ it, though.

He still shot Takada, though.

"Well, there seems to be a hacker threatening the Chinese government," L murmurs. "I'll might need your help with that, soon. But it's a little early to be confident that the threats aren't empty."

Mail nods and listens, and checks his watch.

He's been gone for thirteen minutes, and Raye still hasn't come after him.

Maybe he really _is _recovering, after all.

* * *

"Hello, Penber."

Raye lifts his head and frowns.

"I thought you were avoiding this place," he ventures, carefully.

"Not deliberately," Rae replies. "I've been working on cases, that's all."

Raye still isn't quite sure what to make of the Shinigami. It is generally polite, often cheerful, and seems to make better conversation than L. And he feels intrinsically sorry for it, having been so effectively manipulated and abused.

But still. It's a monster. It's a god of _death_. And he's not quite sure he can trust it.

"How's that going?"

"Not as well as I'd hoped," Rae admits. "A Shinigami cannot make phone calls, or interfere with humans other than to kill them or distribute death notes. So, I'm identifying criminals, but I can't actually bring them to justice on my own."

_So you broke some sort of rule when you allowed all of us to see you, _Raye realises._ And you did that solely to protect L_.

_And look how he repaid you. _

_He wasn't even the least bit grateful._

L might be trying to save the world, but what he did to Rae was _wrong_.

"Then it's completely futile," Raye says aloud. "Why are you even bothering at all?"

"Well…all I really need is the help of a human," Rae tells him, hesitantly.

Raye slams both his fists against the desk.

"You had better not be thinking of going back to L," he growls. "He'll destroy you."

And he won't allow that. L won't be hurting _anyone_.

He's done enough damage already.

"No, that would be disastrous," Rae agrees, a little sadly. "I was thinking…maybe Mail?"

Mail would be safer, but Mail is too close to L.

And.

And, Mail _said_ it was okay. And this might be exactly the opportunity that Raye has been hoping for.

"I could help you," Raye offers, quickly. "I mean. I know I'm not as smart as the other two, but I'm sure I'm capable of making phone calls and arresting a few criminals. If…if you want."

"I wasn't sure if you'd be up to it," the Shinigami admits.

Raye wonders, briefly, whether it has been listening outside the room the whole time. Whether it heard what he said to Mail, and engineered this conversation because it _knew_ he would volunteer. But, in all honesty, he doesn't care. With Rae, he can solve real crimes. Proper crimes. _Big_ crimes. He can be the sort of detective that Naomi always wanted to be.

And he can do it without L's help.

"I'm up to it," Raye says, firmly.

* * *

This is ridiculously easy.

Penber actually _suggested it on his own_. Penber _wants_ the two of them to work together. Rae barely had to convince him at all.

_You must really despise L, to go against him like this._

Raye Penber is either really weak, or slightly more moral than Rae previously estimated. Either is tolerable, for now. If he turns out to be a bad person in the end, Rae can always just kill him.

The first criminal on the list is an enigmatic and violent rapist. It took Rae six long days of tracking and research to identify him. It takes Penber less than three sentences to convince the relevant authorities to arrest him.

Humans have everything so fucking _easy_.

And even then, most of them fail to do anything _useful _with their lives. How many cases has L solved in the past month? Barely any. Rae has a long list of criminals just waiting to be taken into custody.

And Penber. Penber can pretend to be L. So he can be the subservient, subdued, beaten, obedient L that Rae has always wanted.

And they'll solve cases, faster than anyone else possibly can. And everything will be fine.

It's not like L was ever special, anyway.

"Okay," Rae says briskly, as soon as Penber has hung up the phone. "This next one is a little more complicated. Herbert Mayne is a long-time fraudster and conman who's been targeting charities for several months. I actually witnessed him in the act, but we need better evidence than that, of course, and….where are you going?"

Raye Penber is _getting out of his chair_ and _walking across the room_ and what the _fuck? _Rae is _trying_ to catch criminals here.

"I'll…I'll be back in a minute," he babbles. "To help. I just. It's been twenty minutes. I need to go and see where Mail is?

Rae groans inwardly. Of course. Penber is dependent on Mail. Dependent enough to delay _protecting innocent people_. Because he's selfish. And _weak._

And Rae will definitely get rid of him, once he stops being useful.

* * *

Under the Shinigami's guidance, Raye makes phone calls and checks databases and facilitates the apprehension of nine different criminals in the space of one day.

Rae is amazingly smart. Smarter even than L.

Maybe that's why L tried to kill it. Pure, simple jealousy.

Raye doesn't know for sure, of course. He doesn't understand fucking geniuses, but he's _doing_ something and making a difference to the world and Naomi would be so _proud_ of him and…

Naomi isn't anything.

Naomi is _dead_.

The revelation hits him like a wave, even though it's been several weeks, even though he knows, every second of every day he _knows_ she's gone, it's still.

He still.

Sometimes, he still just expects her to be there.

And she'd have wanted to be involved with this. She'd have wanted to help with these cases.

"What is it?" Rae asks, sounding surprisingly gentle.

Raye drops to the floor and ducks his head between his knees. His sobs are shuddering and painful, over and over, as inevitable as a seizure.

He's not okay. He's still not okay.

He's never fucking going to be okay.

It takes Mail a good ten minutes to realize that something is wrong, and cross the room to sit with him, and Raye loathes him for not coming sooner.

* * *

In the space of one week, Rae catches two more rapists, solves three complicated murders, apprehends the ringleaders of a white supremacy organization, and cracks the pedophile ring that stumped L.

And L.

L arrests one counterfeiter.

_I've made the right decision_, L thinks, miserably watching the evening news. _Even if you kill me, it won't matter. Because the world is better off with you, instead._

* * *

Mail hates the alliance that Raye has forged with the Shinigami, because he doesn't trust it and he doesn't exactly trust Raye's judgment, either.

But he desperately wants to work cases, for some utterly unfathomable reason, and it's not like Mail has any fucking idea what's going on in Raye's head, anyway.

And Raye still has hysterics every time he leaves the room, and Mail is starting to get this awful suspicion that he's being used as an emotional crutch, and that is bound to end badly because Mail is approximately the least stable thing in the universe.

But he stays, anyway. He sits in the same room and ignores the fucking god of death and works and eavesdrops as best he can. Because it would be really fucking _idiotic _if Rae actually managed to kill L. And also, Raye tends to rage and scream if Mail doesn't accurately predict the timing of his emotional outbursts down to the last fuckin' second.

Besides, the love of his life - the centre of his universe - is dead. It's not like he has anything better to do.

* * *

_You focus on trying to finish your novels, to entertain yourself, to pass the time, to keep yourself out of trouble. To try and escape from the real world for just a little while._

_But you've never been good with fiction, and the words start to run together, the sentences start to blur, and you realise that you're just recycling the same old plot in a dozen variations._

_And the protagonist is always the same character, too. Male, young adult. Scottish. Brown hair and freckles. Perfect in every way, adored by everyone. Painfully straight._

_Essentially, they're all Matt. _

_It's not like he'll ever know, anyway. Even he isn't masochistic enough to take an interest in your pathetic attempts at creativity. _

_It's not as if your life is ever going to get any better. And it's not as if you have the guts to get away from this place. You're just a big, fat, hopeless loser. _

_Sometimes, you wish the guy who murdered your parents when you were a baby had had the spine to kill you, as well. _

_Because then you'd be dead – you'd have barely ever existed – and you wouldn't have to deal with this shit._

* * *

"Okay," Rae says, rubbing its skeletal hands together. "You need to convince the Cardiff police to interview this witness, Penber. She's twelve and she's scared, but she's the only one who actually saw the gunman's face. Since we'd have no way of knowing that, though, I suggest you recommend they interview all of the junior students."

Raye rubs at his eyes. He's kind of exhausted. Shinigami apparently have boundless energy and mental reserve, and he can barely keep up. He's actually sleeping well at night, and that's…that's good. He needs to keep reminding himself that this is good. This is what she would want.

Raye checks over his shoulder automatically. Mail is still lounging in the corner, staring into the middle distance.

"And you need to _hurry_," Rae urges. "I know you're probably tired, but they can only keep him in custody for another twenty hours, maximum."

The Shinigami recognizes that he's fatigued. Huh. So even _Rae_ is kinder - and more human – than L.

And L tried to murder it. Take its heart, break its heart, and destroy its remaining life. With a smile on his fucking face.

_He cried over Naomi. It's okay. It's okay to stay here. It's fine._

_He's not really evil. He's just._

_He's just L._

"I'm on it," he replies, faintly.

"Good," Rae tells him. "You can rest once this is done. I'll be travelling to Germany tomorrow. I have suspicions about the identity of the person who abducted those twin boys, but I need to go to the scene of the crime before I can be sure."

"Right," Raye agrees.

The Shinigami never seems to stop solving crimes, even for a moment. It comes and goes a lot, but that's okay. It's not like it's his friend, or anything.

* * *

L works as hard as he possibly can. He doesn't attempt to keep pace with Rae, because he _can't_. He's old and he's useless. But even if it takes him a year just to solve one case, he's still going to try. He owes the world that much. He owes Naomi. He owes Matsuda.

The newspapers are studded with Rae's successes, but it seems to be spending more time working that warranted by these cases alone. L suspects it is also tackling other, smaller, less newsworthy cases.

Possibly in an attempt to prove him incompetent.

L doesn't blame it for that. But he watches. He watches and listens and drinks in the small glimpses he gets of Rae, the snippets of information that Mail brings him, because this is his only reward. Rae being safe and alive and _near him_, for just a little while longer, is all he can ever hope for.

With Mail's help, he tracks down and catches a long-term serial killer. An ex-schoolteacher, who murders one person every year as part of a ritual that will apparently protect her family from being sent to hell.

In a way, the second world has amplified the very religious; because both punishment and the afterlife have become inescapably real. Sometimes the amplification is beneficial, and sometimes it is disastrous. Religion is never to blame, L knows. Religion doesn't kill people. People kill people. And sometimes, L manages to stop them before they succeed.

The next week, L starts investigating a diplomat suspected of espionage. And then Mail calls and informs him that Raye and Rae have taken on that case, and that he needs to find something else to do.

So even Mail has decided that they're the better detectives.

Good. Rae is still here, and Rae is still working cases, and that's enough.

Until Light comes back, that's enough.

* * *

The next case is a lone terrorist, and the evidence is so obvious that Raye is pretty sure he could have solved it on his own. But he lets Rae take the lead, anyway. It speaks to him with kindness and respect, like a proper colleague, and Raye can almost pretend he's just a normal guy, working a normal job.

But then they hit a quiet spell, and the crime rate becomes so low that even Rae's enthusiasm becomes sapped. And with lack of work comes boredom, and with boredom comes grief and the deafening silence and the absence of Naomi.

Sometimes, L comes down to talk to Mail. Rae always pretends to be terribly busy. Raye hates how it is stuck living in a confined space with someone who has threatened its life.

Aren't they supposed to be protecting the innocent from the abusive, after all?

"I think I should go," Rae announces, quietly. "I'll return as soon as a significant unsolved crime presents itself, of course."

Raye doesn't say _don't go_, because Raye doesn't mind if it leaves. Mail stays in the same room during the day, and sits by his bed every night, and he doesn't actually _need_ the Shinigami for companionship.

Besides. If he wants to take on a case, he can do it alone. Naomi would want that, too.

"Sure," he replies. "Okay. What will you do?"

Rae's eyes are blood-red, burning-red, horror-red. Raye will never get used to looking at them. He'll never not want to run screaming.

But frightening eyes are not enough to make a creature evil. L has no excuse.

"I'm going to broaden my horizons," Rae says softly, stretching its wings over its head. "I think I'm going to frequent police academies and universities, and see what I can learn."

"Will that information really be useful, once the five years are over?"

Raye wonders whether the Shinigami actually _wants_ to fight crime. Like maybe, even once it is finished with L and reunited with its notebook, it will go on fighting crime and making the world a better place.

He kind of likes the idea of that. He's really not sure the world should be relying on L, right now.

Even if the knowledge _is_ useless, it will be good for Rae's emotional health to escape this place for a little while. Raye is almost jealous.

_I have to stay. I decided I would stay here. Naomi would want me to stay._

"When you're talented, _all_ information is useful," Rae says, voice confident and bright. "Listen. Be careful. I don't think he'll try to hurt you, but it's probably better to exercise caution."

"I'll be fine," Raye says, emphatically. "Go."

The Shinigami disappears from the room, without another word. Raye picks up his laptop, moves across the room, and sits down on the floor next to Mail.

* * *

And then, perhaps inevitably, L gets sick.

There's a nasty strain of influenza circulating the country, and he's recently been deficient in both sustenance and sleep, so it's no great surprise, really. But weakness and fever stacked on top of grief and self-loathing and loneliness proves to be an unbearable combination. L retires to his bed, unable to think, unable to move quickly, useless and useless and useless.

_Maybe this is it_.

Illness might force him to retire. Force him to give up the job.

Force him to make way for Rae.

There's nothing to do, anyway. There's no work. If this keeps up for long enough, he'll eventually run out of money.

Of course, that would take approximately….fifteen years. Even longer, if he's frugal.

L curls up, and drags the pillow over his head.

Rae has been gone for two weeks, and L _hurts_.

* * *

With the Shinigami absent, Raye automatically goes back to spending all his time with Mail. He occupies himself by alternating between studying Naomi's textbooks, looking over Mail's shoulder, and staring miserably at the wall.

"So the monster's gone, huh?" Mail says, casually. "Is that a permanent arrangement?"

"Not yet," Raye says, unable to keep the spite from his voice. "It's stuck with L for another few months."

Mail looks up from his computer screen, focusing on Raye with flat, unemotional blue eyes. He seems to be deciding upon what to say next.

Apparently Mail used to wear goggles all the time, before he died. Hardly anyone ever saw the upper part of his face. And - if Raye remembers correctly - he was a hardcore gamer who wore stripes and bright colours and knee-high boots. He was a _person_, not just an empty, grief-stricken shell.

Raye can't. Raye can't do that. Raye can't make himself into a nobody. He can't abandon his need for food, or his favourite style of jacket, or his love of crossword puzzles. He doesn't want to ignore his hair, his personal hygiene. He doesn't want to dress in Naomi's clothes and try to _become_ her and never escape.

Never escape.

That's it, isn't it? The principle difference between the two of them. One day, Raye wants to be able to get on with his life.

_No!_

No, he doesn't!

Fucking no!

He doesn't. He wants to be in love with Naomi forever. He's not. He was a good husband! Is a good husband! Can be a good husband, forever. He's just doing things differently, that's all! Mail's way isn't the only way!

Mail's way isn't…

Mail is the only friend he has left. The only person who understands.

"Huh. And you're trying to keep it safe from L, right?" Mail asks, slowly, seemingly unaware of Raye's inner turmoil.

Is that how it is? Rae against L? No middle ground?

Good against evil?

When he first started working in this place, Raye was convinced that L was absolutely good.

"I don't know," he murmurs. "I really don't know."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ so, work and health issues are making it difficult for me to work on this fic at the minute. please be assured that I haven't given up on it or anything. updates might be a little slow for the next month or so, and then hopefully return to normal.

+ also, plot is kind of dragging right now. things will happen soon! I promise!

+ thank you for reading.


	52. Divide

notes/warnings

+ on top of being an entire MONTH late, this chapter is also woefully short. there are mechanical reasons for this, because there's a later scene that I didn't want to split up.

+ warnings for swearing, grief, illness, malice.

* * *

**Divide**

L is seriously ill. Seriously ill and seriously vulnerable. And seriously stupid. Maybe Rae is giving him too much credit by even ignoring him. He's certainly not a threat to anyone right now.

_Thank goodness for that._

_Monster._

_Demon. _

_Murderer._

It would be nice, though, to see him suffer. Mollifying. Appealing.

Yes. Rae might go and do that.

After all, bad people should always be punished.

* * *

L's illness wears on. He spends three days in a feverish stupor, burning hot and freezing cold, his heart pounding arrhythmically, like it might shudder to a halt at any moment.

A death note can kill in many different ways. A death note can kill by illness.

Maybe Light is already murdering him.

If that is the case, then there is nothing L can do about it. If Light discovers his real name and finds another notebook, then L is automatically defeated. If a Shinigami falls in love with Light, then L is automatically defeated.

Misa fell in love with Light. So did Takada. Maybe Mikami, as well. He wins people. He _makes people like him_. That's what he does.

Perhaps L never stood a chance at all.

Watari stuffs him with vitamins and pain pills, and cleans the room, and at one point even puts him on a drip. L doesn't respond or help. He cannot think. His mind is a fog of _incompetent_ and _fear_ and _Light_ and _death _and _Rae_.

He sleeps fitfully. He wakes fitfully. He thinks fitfully, fruitlessly, in circles.

L can acknowledge, now, that he loves Rae with all his heart. That he'll never be in love with anyone else. That he is spent, maybe forever. Maybe the way that Mail is spent; inescapable.

It was always a doomed relationship. Doomed from the very beginning. Rae never should have comforted him after Naomi's death. L never should have put his hands inside Rae's chest. L never should have told Rae about his mother. They should have stayed enemies, and circumstantial rivals. It is almost irrelevant now, whether L uses the notebook, and that was so _important_ in the beginning.

L wants.

He wants one day, with Rae. He wants to be happy and uncomplicated and _safe_ for just one day. Even if Rae never touches him. Even if it's just a day of _conversation_; of if they can never be together again afterwards. Even if he dies afterwards. Even if he goes to hell. He just. He just wants one.

He can't have one day.

L cannot go back, no matter what he might want. He cannot physically undo what he has done.

_I love you_.

This illness is going to kill him.

_I love you_.

Rae won't ever know.

_I love you_.

L is so _sick_ of doing the right thing. He wants Rae's help. He wants to stop. He wants to write in the death note, at the very least, and end the whole agonizingly slow process of _wanting _and _not having_.

Naomi would be so disappointed in him.

And Rem warned him not to fall, so long ago. Before all of this. And back then, he never would have thought any of this possible, but things change. People change. He's never really recovered from the day Light defeated him.

"Are you dying yet?" someone asks, and L lifts his head suddenly, the whole room rushing around him, nauseating and blurry.

His Shinigami is slouched in the doorway, wings glinting dangerously in the artificial light.

"I want to watch," it explains, with a disgusted little smile. "I want to see how much you _suffer_. Can you feel the bile rising in your throat? Is the pain unbearable? Aw, look. You can't even keep your head up."

L pushes a hand over his eye and fights the mounting urge to vomit.

"Do you know how long you've got left to live, monster? Because _I_ know."

Rae must feel safe, knowing that he's ill. Rae has actually come here to torment him. To make him feel awful.

He can't die yet. He's supposed to live for the full five years.

"Haven't written in the notebook yet," he mumbles.

_Please don't go don't go don't go_.

Rae snorts.

"Evil _and _stupid," it says, damningly. "You could be replaced by just about any criminal out there. A randomly selected mugger from the street. The serial killer we – sorry, _I_ – just arrested."

Rae looks so _pleased_ with itself, with the prospect of a world without L in it, and L doesn't want to deal with any of this.

_Please, _he thinks, vaguely, desperately, nonsensically. _ Please please please._

_Why weren't you smart enough to see that I was lying?_

_Why do you have to be so damaged by me?_

_WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE ME, DAMN YOU!_

L smiles, lazy and slow. His cheeks ache.

"Does this mean you've decided I'm no longer a threat?" he purrs. "Interesting."

It is the right thing to say. Exactly the right thing to say. L always does the right thing.

Rae snarls at him and walks away.

L throws his head back against the pillows, hands fisted and throat burning.

* * *

A new terrorist has been making headlines in the United States. So far, they've successfully attacked three semi-urban buildings in three separate precincts; Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. L is still unwell, and Rae is busy investigating a prolific mass murderer, so Raye attempts to tackle the case on his own.

One thing is certain; the crime rate is starting to rise. Faux-Kira is long gone, and the big-shot criminals are starting to feel safe again.

Faux-Kira. Takada. The criminal who murdered Naomi. Every agonizing second of that investigation - sitting in the godforsaken car, listening to Takada hit on his precious wife, running and screaming and finding her _dead _and_ too late -_ is burned into Raye's mind like a fire-brand.

And yet, sometimes he feels as if he can barely remember the details at all. As if everything is fuzzy. He can recall Naomi's lifeless face, but not the colour of her jacket or the address of the building or which room, exactly, he'd been standing in.

Maybe grief does that to people, sometimes.

People who aren't Mail, anyway. Stupid fucking Mail. Who is outside on the balcony, staring into the distance. Raye can see him if he cranes his neck.

A synagogue, a shopping center, and a state-funded orphanage. The only real link between the three bombing sites is geographic location. Which means…it's more likely that the message isn't religious, or moral. It's more likely to be terrorism for terrorism's sake.

Right?

Raye isn't good at psychological profiling. At heart, he's still just a simple FBI agent. He can pull his weight in a team, but he struggles with working alone. Theoretically he could ask Mail for help, but this will eventually be Rae's case, and Rae needs to be protected from L and everyone who supports him.

So, Raye spends a good three hours staring at pages of data. Dates and times and local traffic and victims both injured and dead. He also has a list of orphanage staff who were on site that day, and lots of grainy, poor quality security footage from the shopping center. Raye decides to look for matches, and scans the surveillance videos for people matching the descriptions in the staff records. The process is frustrating and stupid. It would be a million times better with Naomi beside him, her keen eyes flitting across the screen, one hand twirled in her hair, teeth pressing into her lower lip.

It would be ten times better if Mail would stop blowing smoke outside and come back into the room. Raye hates him for not being a real, normal person. He hates him for having _years_ and _resources_, and still not having found an effective cure for this godforsaken _loneliness_.

_What good are you, really? What good are you?_

The footage is useless. People can disguise themselves. Especially when the only evidence is a bunch of low-quality pixels. And Raye can't _do_ this. He's sick of this. The orphanage janitor has only one fucking arm. His file says that he has a wife and two kids. He has one fucking _arm_, and Raye wants to find him and kick him in the face out of pure, bitter jealousy.

Everybody gets a fucking family, except him.

Except him and L. But L is abusive and unkind and deserves to live alone, die alone. He didn't deserve Naomi's friendship. He certainly didn't deserve Rae's trust. He doesn't even deserve Mail's fucking psychosis.

The longer Raye works here, the more doubtful he becomes. The Shinigami tries not to let personalities get involved in the cases, but sometimes it makes a comment that sounds so _broken_ and _sad_, and Raye finds himself reconsidering his decision to stay all over again.

Raye could leave, but he'd have to take Mail with him. For purely mechanical reasons. He's pretty sure he'd collapse five feet away from the building, otherwise.

Raye needs to stay. He needs to stay and be Rae's voice. He's _useful_, even if it's only as a glorified ventriloquist's dummy, and he has to work cases. He _has _to.

He can't. It's just a screenful of fucking people, walking around, and how is he ever going to pick a terrorist suspect out of…

Oh.

One of the men in the shopping center only has one arm.

Well, that's a start.

* * *

L keeps calling and calling and calling and _calling_. And he's hurting so much, and Jas feels sorry for him.

_It's not my fault._

_You were the only one._

_I had to_.

He knows she exists. He is so very clever, even when he's broken and alone. And so she can be strong. She can be strong.

And…she knows what he's frightened of. He knows she's omnipotent. He's wasting energy, and precious, precious time investigating her.

_Just stop, will you? Just stop! Just stop._

_Stupid boy. _

_You're only human._

* * *

With nothing better to do, L decides to use his mediocre hacking skills to try and further investigate the Tracking Library.

It's probably a futile venture. Everything seems to be a futile venture, these days. But the world is a nauseating fog, and any distraction – even an inane one – is welcome.

The screen is too bright, and L has to keep stopping to rest his aching head against the desk. He eats a grape and manages to keep it down. His computer skills are far inferior to both Watari's and Mail's, but neither of them can pursue the hell-god and keep their memories intact.

Sometimes, L feels like he's fighting too many people. Stretched too thin, wound too tight. Outdated and laughable. Subconsciously, he reaches for his phone and dials one more time. Calling has become a hobby for him. It's something he can do when he's half-dead from dehydration, bedridden and weighed down with sweat-soaked clothes and self loathing.

He saved Rae, though. He saved Rae. He saved Rae. He's doing better than both Raye and Mail put together, because he was able to save the one he loved.

Just once.

Never again.

It has to be enough.

"_Hello, this is the Tracking Library. Our staff are unavailable right now. It doesn't matter how many times you call, they will never be available."_

The world lurches to a halt. Cold fear pulses through L's chest, his fingers white-knuckled where he's clutching the phone. The message continues, and he's heard it so many times before that the very concept of it _having changed _is the most terrifying and disconcerting thing in the universe.

"_This is the last piece of advice you'll get from me. Leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. Do you understand, L?"_

Soundlessly, L slips from the chair and collapses on the floor into a trembling, disoriented heap.

* * *

Maybe that wasn't the right thing to do?

No. Enough of that. She is the queen. She is the god of hell. The bearer of the white notebook. Everything she does is exactly right, and she must always believe that.

L needs to recover. He needs to focus on the world around him, the world of mortals, the world of _humans_. The world that sustains and fascinates and disgusts Shinigami. The world that made her who she is.

She promised herself, right at the very beginning, that she would only ever impact on those who were in hell. So L must be strong, for the sake of everyone else.

He _is_ strong, even now. She's practically threatened to bring Light down over his head, and still he pushes himself up, and gets to his feet.

"Everything will be fine," she murmurs, softly, fondly. "You have done so well, L. You don't even understand how well you've done, but that's okay. There's not long to go, now. It will all be over soon."

He can't hear her, of course. But she says it, anyway.

* * *

L grips the table with trembling hands, the world around him a little clearer.

So.

The hell-god directly acknowledged him. And in doing so, practically admitted that it has no actual way of controlling him.

_You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone_.

It's a little late for that. Naomi was killed by someone in hell. Grace probably was, too. So the god of hell is either malevolent or careless. Either way, L has no reason to trust the words of such a flawed deity.

He's dealt with flawed deities before.

And…he will not be bullied.

L drags himself back into his chair, eats another grape, and defiantly hits 'redial' on his phone.

"_Hello, this is the Tracking Library. Our staff are unavailable right now. Please note that records cannot be given out over the phone. If you have another request, leave a message after the tone."_

The regular message is back. As if the other never existed at all. The hell-god is ignoring him.

_Good, _L thinks, and turns back to his computer.

* * *

Raye Penber is so ridiculously fucking _pleased_ with himself for actually discovering something. It's pathetic. And kind of disgusting.

"Excellent job," Rae tells him, brightly, because that's exactly what Raye wants to hear.

"Thanks," the man replies, ducking his head a little in embarrassment. "I, ah, haven't found anything else useful, yet."

_Of course you haven't. You're not actually any good at this, you know._

"That's fine. We've got a lead to work with, now. You've saved me some time."

With Raye's help, Rae is bringing the world of crime to its knees. It _is_ kind of sickening that it has to pose as L in order to be successful, but still.

The ends justify the means.

Always always always, the ends justify the means. Some people are just too stupid to understand that.

"What's the next step?" Raye asks. "There's no other data available on the janitor at all. We need to find out if his name and address checks out, right? But none of the surviving staff members want to discuss anything, and most of the paperwork has been destroyed."

The name on the employee file is 'Edgar Bridges'. Middle-aged man with a nuclear family, a restricted workload, and an apparently pristine criminal record.

"He never drew a disability pension?" Rae muses.

"Well, not under that name, anyway," Raye says, dejectedly. "We've still got almost nothing to go on."

"That's not true," Rae tells him. "We know this man survived the bombing in the orphanage, because he showed up in Florida two days later, and…"

L shuffles into the room, as quiet and insidious as a brain tumour. Rae is overcome with the intense, primal desire to _get away run away now now now!_

_Don't be stupid. It's only L._

_Everything is okay._

It is, of course. It's just always such a horrible shock to see him, now.

'_Do Shinigami feel pleasure, Rae?'_

_Shut up!_

_I'll kill you I'll kill you I'LL KILL YOU._

Not now, not yet. Soon. Soon, soon, soon. It's okay. Everything will be okay.

In any case, L doesn't look at Rae. He goes straight to Mail. Running to his only friend in the whole world.

His only friend in the whole world is insane.

"Hey," Mail says, blandly. "You look slightly better."

"I feel slightly better," L replies, in that stupid fucking thoughtful tone with his stupid finger stuck in his mouth.

_You might be better, but you'll never be right._

L must never ever win. Must never ever get the better of Rae. Pure evil. Must never. Rae has to survive. Rae has to save the world.

"You working on anything at the minute?" Mail asks, casually.

Mail is definitely more functional than he was before. He's not any sort of threat, but if he continues at his current rate of improvement, he might eventually become one. But still. He has obvious weaknesses. He can be easily manipulated.

"You okay?" Raye asks, quietly, leaning closer. "Want me to ask him to leave?"

Everything is fine. Because Raye Penber has been won. Raye Penber doesn't belong to L, any more. It's not a bad day. It's a good day.

"Not specifically," L intones. "You?"

Mail frowns.

"Wait, wasn't there something you wanted me to hack?" he says, sounding puzzled. "I'm sure you asked me yesterday, but I can't fuckin' remember what it was."

"It was nothing," L murmurs. "That task is no longer important."

This conversation is meaningless. Rae wonders if L is staging it for Rae's own benefit, trying to make himself appear amenable and non-threatening. If that _is_ the case, then L is clutching at fucking straws.

"Watari was worried about you," Mail informs him.

"Yes," L agrees. "He told me I should eat more vegetables."

Mail raises an eyebrow. L is practically leaning over the top of him. And Raye is watching the two of them intently.

L cares for Mail. L has cared for Mail from the very beginning. And that's the most important thing.

"He did? What did you say?"

"I politely offered to fire him."

Mail snorts, and L gives him this bizarre little lopsided smile, and Rae is suddenly bombarded with a frantic, all-consuming sense of relief. Of somehow having been plucked, impossibly, right from the jaws of death, from the very edge of obliteration, and only just in the nick of time.

If.

If L hadn't.

No, it's impossible. L is who he is, evil and grotesque and _wrong_, and Rae would have worked it out, always would have worked it out, even if L had never made a mistake.

It's not like.

Rae feels like it is staring into a chasm, the road not taken, terrifying and endless. That if it had gone on liking L and liking L and liking L it would have been sucked up and overpowered by something huge. Something that might have unseated even Rae's tremendous sense of _self._

_What is this?_

_What is…what is wrong with me?_

_What was almost wrong with me?_

It doesn't matter. It's a false possibility, because L isn't the person Rae cared for. The person Rae cared for never existed, and L is a monster. It's very simple. Rae knows, logically, that it would never have fallen.

And yet.

And yet.

"You're still staying in this place," L says loudly, shattering the silence. "Huh. Good."

"Leave the Shinigami alone," Raye growls, and he actually gets up and stands in front of Rae protectively. "You…you just leave everyone alone, do you hear?"

L steps away from Mail.

"I'm not holding anyone prisoner," he says, softly. "All of you may leave at any time you choose."

Rae wishes it could break L's jaw, and make him shut up forever. The sound of his voice grates, every move, every…

_Don't you smile again._

_Don't you smile at me, you murderer._

"Believe me," Raye snarls. "I know that."

"Good," L says, diplomatically. "Then we can all go back to work."

He ambles out of the room without another word. Rae watches him go. It's easy. Everything is easy, because L is terrible and hating him is effortless, automatic, _required_. Rae will always be safe because L will always be a bad person, and it is pointless and unhealthy to dwell on impossible possibilities.

Rae can't fall. Rae doesn't fall. Rae is strong. Rae is important.

Everything is okay.

"So," Rae instructs, as calmly as possible. "We want to check all the flights that travelled between Georgia and Florida over those two days. Airports tend to have tight security. Bridges must have left some evidence behind."

"Yeah," Raye says, and his hands are shaking at his sides. "Yeah. Right. Okay."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ health and work issues still ongoing. next chapter is about sixty percent finished, though, so hopefully there won't be another month-long wait. even if there is, please rest assured that I'm still working on this fic and it has definitely not been abandoned.

+ thank you for reading, and for your patience.


	53. Future

notes/warnings

+ mild sexual themes, I guess?

+ swearing

* * *

**Future**

Over the course of the day Rae manages to track all of Bridges' recent flights, uncover another of his false identities, and pinpoint his current location in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Then it leaves for the night, presumably to try and gather more concrete evidence. Raye doesn't understand Rae's methods, and tonight he doesn't much care. He trusts Rae. He'll report whatever criminals it tells him to report.

Because the alternative is trusting L. And…no. Just, just fucking _no._ Raye hates L, hates this place, hates everything. He feels uncomfortable, like he's too big for his skin, like his nerves are too sensitive and everything hurts. He's all alone. He hates the fact that Mail is still allied to L, after Naomi, after Rae, after _everything_.

Raye slams the computer shut, and goes to bed. Mail trots after him twenty seconds later, closes the door, and resumes his usual position on the carpet. Mail always follows him. And Raye never complains about the laptop-screen glow that penetrates the comfortable darkness of his room. That is their routine. Raye feels slightly better, as if a small quantity of his anger has somehow dissolved. For Rae's sake, he cannot consider Mail a colleague. But he does consider Mail a friend. Sort of.

_We should run away from this place. You and me and the Shinigami. We should run away from L._

He's got hooks in all of them. Raye stays because of Naomi. The Shinigami is obligated to stay near L until the five years are over. Mail stays because…

Because.

Because L is important to him, maybe. Because L is the only person left in his whole world who merits any attention at all.

And that's horrible.

No, that _can't_ be true. Mail has Raye. Watches over Raye. Is Raye's companion. They're always together. They're the only two humans left in this building. In this whole, nightmarish world of murder and monsters and gods. All that Raye has left. Mail cannot belong to L. He _cannot_.

Mail cannot belong to anyone, because Mail isn't anyone. He's dead inside. He cannot be fixed. He is Raye's future.

"Don't you ever need to sleep?" Raye asks, hoarsely.

The weather is getting cooler. The room is tidy, now. Nothing smells bad. The sheets are clean and well-worn. It's a good night for sleeping.

Mail turns his head abruptly. The moonlight paints him in shades of grey. He's still so young, too young for this crap, too young to be in love. His hair is long, now. Naomi was the only one who could convince him to keep it reasonably short. His fringe flops into his eyes.

"No," he says, without sadness or hesitation. "Not ever."

As if it means nothing. As if it's as easy as throwing out an old pair of shoes, as thoughtless as shaving. Raye aches for rest, aches for the comfort of unconsciousness in his own, safe bed. He wants to sleep all the time. He wants to solve crimes all the time. He wants to _feel like a human being again_, goddamnit.

"Even L needs it, sometimes," Raye whispers, unable to keep the loathing from his voice.

Mail always answers his questions within a few seconds. Raye never has to wait long. Sometimes, Mail is proof that he exists, that he is separate from Naomi, that he did not die alongside her.

"L is damaged," Mail tells him, softly. "Leave him alone."

A thousand different words rush through Raye's head at once.

_No. Don't say that. You know what he's like._

_He doesn't deserve your sympathy._

_Don't waste the little humanity you have left. Not on him. _

_He's just an ugly guy with a decent brain and poor social skills. _

_Why can't you SEE?_

_Staying with L won't bring Mello back. Mello is gone. Naomi is gone. We should run away._

_The skeleton is a better detective than he is._

Mail is Raye's _future_ and L destroys futures, destroys families, destroys everything. Raye won't stand for this. He _won't_.Mail should…

_Leaning all over you…_

_What's wrong with you?_

_What's WRONG with you?_

_Why would you choose somebody like him, when you…_

The sentences collide and mash in Raye's mind and stopper around the region of his vocal chords. Mail watches him, carefully. Mail has dark hair. In the wrong light, he resembles Naomi.

"Come here," Raye manages, and it isn't what he'd intended to say at all.

Nothing in his life is right, and he doesn't know what to do. But it's a comfortable night. There isn't much light.

It's such a vague and strange request that he expects Mail to ask for clarification. When Mail doesn't, and simply gets to his feet, turns, and touches a knee to the bed, Raye feels inconceivably relieved.

Raye is suffocating. He's been suffocating for weeks; in anger, in grief, in boredom, in his own unhealthy internal monologue.

"What do you need?" Mail asks, blandly. Like Raye is asking for the time, or for a cup of tea. Raye doesn't know what he's asking for. He wants to be saved. He wants Naomi.

It strikes Raye that the most important thing in the universe, right now, is to bring Mail down onto the same horizontal plane. Like somehow, they'll be okay, then. He hits the empty side of the bed with his right hand. There isn't any Naomi to stop his palm from connecting with the mattress.

"Here," he repeats.

This is a test. Mail has always done everything for him. If he denies Raye this, then Raye will know. He can't be trusted. He can't be weaned from L. Raye will truly always be alone. Mail has always been right where Raye needed him.

So far.

Mail's expression does not change, but he puts a little more weight on his knee, making a tiny divot in the bedspread.

Nobody has been in this bed except Raye. He's festered here for so long. Mail is different. He changes things. Maybe he can save Raye, even if he is beyond repair himself. Maybe Raye will use him as a stepping stone, even if Mail drowns.

If it meant…

…he could feel alive again.

Raye grabs at the front of Mail's filthy trench-coat, locking one finger deftly into the button-hole. Mail doesn't flinch. Mail doesn't stop him.

Okay. This is good. Raye feels better, already.

Mail drops down onto the empty mattress-space with a surprising amount of grace. He's all hard edges, skin and bone and grime. He's walking proof that this afterlife is a bad, bad, terrible concept. That the dead should be left dead _oh god no Naomi. _The dead cannot be left dead. Naomi needed to live. Mail needed to die.

Raye can still see L in the office, draped over Mail like a drunkard, like a bad smell. Like he was taking _comfort_ in it.

Mail still doesn't speak. He's so compliant. L made him that way. Raye hates L for everything he's done to everyone. He hates Mail for never getting better. Mail is his future.

Raye reaches out and tips Mail's chin, because he can. Because this is the thing that he's doing right now, the thing that L cannot do, has not done. Mail is letting Raye do it, and that's another nail in L's metaphorical coffin. Raye is doing this for Rae and himself and Mail and all of them. Especially Rae.

Raye puts a hand on Mail's waist, and there's almost nothing there. He's skinny to the point of starvation. He's so different from Naomi, and Raye wants her here _so badly_. He wants her to come home. This is her home. He is her home.

Mello is Mail's home. But maybe, if Raye can break him away from that, if Raye can force him to recover, to be a _person_ again, then Raye will be all right, too.

Mail is his future. Raye is changing his future. They're the only two humans left in the whole world. Raye pushes a hand under Mail's shirt. His skin feels like nothing, like any other criminal Raye has patted down.

Mail hasn't moved. His breathing is steady, his hands curled together in front of his chest. His eyes are glassy, staring straight ahead, like he doesn't care what happens to him. Like nothing matters, and…

_What the fuck am I doing?_

The revelation comes like a shock, like a torrent of ice-cold water. Raye is in bed with someone. Someone who isn't Naomi, and it's only _ever_ been Naomi, and Mail is disgusting and everything about him is wrong.

Raye lashes out, violent and furious and desperate to _fix this. _Mail tumbles to the floor and doesn't even try to catch himself. Raye loathes him for not caring, more than anything else.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Raye says, with as much venom as possible, because he wants Mail to suffer, to _bleed_.

Mail sits up and shrugs.

"S'posed to take care of you," he monotones.

"_Fuck_ you," Raye yells, because Mail is nothing. Feels nothing. Cares about nothing. He's _not_ going to be Raye's future. "You're not even a fucking _person_!"

And then he gets out of bed, and grabs Mail by his grotesquely bony shoulder, drags him across the room, throws him through the doorway, and slams the door shut between them, locking it with a satisfying _click_.

_I'm not going to be you I'm not going to be you I'm not going to be you._

* * *

Three minutes later, Raye shoves the door back open, hauls Mail back into the room, dumps him on his regular spot on the carpet, and the walls finally finally finally stop closing in, stop _screaming _at him.

"Just stay there," Raye hisses, without looking at Mail's awful fucking face. "Don't…don't _fucking_ move."

He buries himself under the covers and prays for sleep and to never wake up.

* * *

At midnight, L gets a phone call from one of his liaisons in Washington.

"This is Eileen Nicholson from the Federal Beareau of Investigations, calling in regards to the recent serial terrorist case," she announces, crisply. "I wish to speak to L, please."

L dangles the phone next to his ear and tries to force himself to remain awake. He's never spoken to Eileen Nicholson. And he is not presently investigating any acts of terrorism.

This must be Rae's case. With Raye Penber's help, Rae is able to pose as him. Become him. A better version of him.

L wouldn't mind being succeeded by his Shinigami.

"I am an agent of L," he says, softly. "We are familiar with that case. Please go ahead."

"The suspect, a Mr Gary Greenville - alias Edgar Bridges – has just been taken into custody," Eileen tells him. "We have indisputable forensic evidence that links him to all three of the attacked buildings. No further participation from you is required."

L frowns.

"It is rare for someone to seek L's assistance and then find they do not need it," he tells her. "You are aware there will still be charges incurred for his services so far?"

"That's fine," she tells him, shortly. "Please let L know we may require less of his help in the future. We are more than happy with the efforts of the detective who solved this case."

L stares at the ceiling.

_Someone solved this case. Someone other than Rae._

_No one is better than Rae. No one._

"Your feedback has been noted and filed accordingly," he tells her. "Is there anything else?"

"You may wish to confirm that your colleagues are all safe," Eileen adds. "My primary contact number for L seems to be ringing out."

Probably because Raye is asleep and Rae is gone. But L makes a note to check on them immediately, just in case.

"Thank you for your concern," he says graciously. "May I enquire about the name of your new detective?"

Eileen snorts.

"It seems like detectives don't give out names, these days," she says, with unprofessional levels of exasperation. "All I know is that we call him Buzz."

"I see. Thank you."

L snaps the phone shut, and heads out to secure the building.

_Buzz._

L should have been able to guess that for himself.

* * *

Raye wakes up, and the sun is shining, and his throat hurts, and Naomi is still dead, and Mail is still on the floor like a sack of so much _garbage_. And Raye still tried to seduce him last night, just _to get revenge on L_.

No. That. That isn't right. That wasn't why. That wasn't what he was trying to prove.

"Why did you let me do that?" he growls, immediately, because this is more important. More important than the terrible thing that he almost did. "Do you _want_ to sleep with me?"

"I don't want anyone," Mail says, like he's reciting from a script. "I don't care about anyone. I don't care what happens to me."

"You wouldn't have stopped me, would you?" Raye demands.

_For fuck's sake, don't say no. Nobody is that broken. Everybody cares what happens to them._

"I wouldn't have stopped you," Mail confirms, easily. "What difference would it have made? Maybe you'd have felt better. I don't know. I don't fuckin' understand you."

And Raye finally, _finally_ realizes that there is no escape. Mail is a doll. A puppet. L's puppet. A dead man walking. No will of his own. No nothing. He's barely even _alive_.

Raye wants to scream. Wants to run and run and run and never look back. But it's pointless, isn't it? Avoiding the inevitable is pointless. Mail is his future. This is what he _will_ become. No hope. No feelings. A shadow.

Inside Raye's own mind, the walls close in and in and in and do not stop until he is surrounded on all sides, claustrophobic and squashed and unable to move.

"Right," he murmurs, and his voice already sounds horrifyingly deadpan. "Right. I see."

Everything is lost.

* * *

"I want you to contact the chief of police for Northern Ireland. He currently has a suspect in custody, but the evidence doesn't match up. He needs to let her go and arrest her brother instead."

"Oh. Ahh, right. You want me to…to…ah…"

The sun has barely risen, and the day is already exasperating. Raye is vacant-eyed, uselessly blank, and completely unable to focus. L is still alive and looking infuriatingly healthy, and some other big-shot detective has gone and solved _Rae's_ case.

That's okay, though. Rae is okay with anyone who brings criminals to justice. Even more so if they manage to make L look stupid along the way.

The world may never recognize L for the inherently evil megalomaniac that he is, but if he is simply disregarded, that will be enough. Without power and money, his hands are tied. Without power and money, L cannot hurt anyone. Rae wants to see L punished for his sins, but the most important thing, first and foremost, _must _be the safety of innocent people.

And besides. L doesn't have much time.

_Tick tick tick._

_Are you frightened?_

_Do you know you're going to die all alone?_

_Just like last time._

It's okay. Rae is okay. Rae didn't fall. Everything is fine.

"Look, I know his alibi is solid, but he's the only one who possibly could have entered the facility without setting off the alarms," Rae explains. "The forensic report noted no unusual fingerprints, but there are two matches right above the air-conditioning unit in the main laboratory. Tell them they need to bring in the brother and re-investigate. It's _definitely _him."

"Definitely," Raye echoes. "I get it. Right. I'll…make that call."

"Is something wrong, Raye Penber?" Rae asks, voice dripping with sincere-sounding patience. "You seem particularly upset today."

Raye stares into the middle distance.

"It's…nothing," he says, thickly. "I can keep working cases. That's…that's the only thing I can do."

"Okay," Rae replies. "Just remember, I'm here if you want someone to talk to."

It's possible that L has gotten to him. That L has harmed him somehow, for daring to support Rae. That wouldn't be surprising at all.

"Yeah. Thanks."

Raye _can't _work cases. Raye can't even reliably make a phone call. Instead, Rae ends up hovering beside him and dictating every single word.

Today is an abysmal day, and Rae deserves better.

* * *

L takes on another case, a hacker who is wiping massive amounts of information from the websites of several prominent news companies. It's reasonably easy, it's probably too low-key to attract the attention of either Buzz or Rae, and he can work closely with Mail.

He's so pathetic. One little illness and he's desperate for companionship and support. And he can't ask anything of his protégé, not with Mail working so hard to deal with Raye already, so L just takes what he can get. Probably he shouldn't have leant all over Mail yesterday, but.

They've been through a lot together. Mail is practically almost his son.

"Why'd you come to check on us last night?" Mail asks, boredly. "Did something happen?"

"Not really," L tells him. "It was a routine check."

Mail huffs his hair out of his eyes.

"You used to do that all the time, in the beginning. When I was first...starting here."

"Yes," L affirms, and waits for Mail to make whatever point he's trying to make. But he doesn't say any more, he just returns his attention to his computer screen.

L tilts his head.

"Thank you," he says, softly. "For looking after Raye Penber."

"You don't need to thank me all the time," Mail says, harshly.

The others are working at the far end of the room. Raye is staring at the computer. Rae is staring at L with pure, untempered hatred.

And that's fine.

Throughout the course of the day, Rae solves a high-profile murder case. L barely covers any preliminary groundwork at all.

Rae is _such_ a good detective. So much more competent than Buzz.

No one is better than Rae.

Well, no.

They were.

He and Rae, together, were better than the sum of their respective abilities. They were a _good team_.

It doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter any more.

Rae wants him to suffer and die. He wants Rae to live forever.

Everything is as it should be.

* * *

A week drags past, taking Rae seven days closer to being able to leave L forever and be _safe_. Nothing else in the universe is good. Nothing else is worth noticing.

Raye barely remembers the case they solved yesterday, or the case he's working on right now. Rae could be arresting people by drawing names out of a hat, and he wouldn't know.

But Rae would never do that. And Raye has made the decision to trust the Shinigami, and he has neither the desire nor the energy to reassess that.

Raye has no purpose in life. He'll save the people he can save, but in the end, he's just passing time.

_Just passing time_.

It comes to him slowly, insidiously, like the worst of bad ideas. It's insane and illogical, but his entire future is insanity. Raye is _used_ to dealing with insanity. And it keeps unfolding in his head, like a map, like the origami cranes Naomi used to make, punctuated by Rae's quiet, focused voice.

Raye isn't listening to a damn thing the Shinigami says. For the first time in a week, he has hope.

Desperate, impossible hope.

* * *

It occurs to Mail that maybe he did something immoral. That maybe it was wrong, to be totally okay with the idea of sleeping with Raye. That maybe he ought to wait for Mello forever, even though…even if Mello were to come back, it's not like he'd ever…

And Mello cannot come back. No matter what Mail does, or how hard he prays, or how hard he _loves_, Mello will always be gone. Vanished.

But Naomi isn't gone forever, and perhaps that is why Raye seems to be getting worse instead of better. Because he is disgusted at the fact that he considered fucking someone else, even for a moment, even in the most platonic and necessary of capacities. It shouldn't even count as cheating, really, because – how did Raye put it – Mail is barely even a person.

Raye still talks to Mail, still follows him from room to room. Raye's life seems to be spiraling out of control, but their tenuous almost-friendship has been left intact. And Mail ought to be able to use that to help Raye, to somehow break him out of his own depressive funk. Mail _ought_ to be able to protect Raye, but he can't. Raye isn't like him, and he has no idea what to say.

Mail is broken, and L should never have expected that he'd be able to save anybody.

* * *

When Rae is finally finished with him, Raye flat-out _runs_ to the balcony and slams the door behind him.

Mail pauses mid-smoke, and eyes him with mild interest. Raye is practically vibrating with apprehension and _possibility_, and Mail looks like he's barely awake.

_You are so broken._

_You can't relate to anybody, can you?_

It doesn't matter. Raye is going to escape. If he possibly, possibly can, Raye is going to escape.

It's not a good plan. It's an insane plan. It is the tiniest shard of hope, paper-thin and near invisible.

"I'm going to try something," he announces. "I'm going to try something and I don't want you to stop me. I don't even really care what you think."

Mail raises an eyebrow at him.

"If you don't care what I think, then why are you fuckin' telling me?" he murmurs, and the exhaustion in his voice is almost tangible.

"Shut up and listen," Raye snarls. He hates Mail. He doesn't have time for Mail's crap. He has all the time in the world, but he still doesn't have enough.

Not yet.

He hasn't done any research at all, but that barely matters. Even if he fails, it will take him years and years and years to reach a conclusion. And that means years and years and years before he's forced to emulate Mail.

And… he might succeed.

"I'm listening."

"I'm going…to go back," Raye tells him, inelegantly.

It's a difficult concept to put into words.

Mail takes the cigarette from his mouth, balances it precariously on the railing, and looks at Raye with unnerving clarity.

"Back to where she was killed?" he asks, but there's an edge to his voice that suggests he knows the truth.

Raye shakes his head.

"Back to when she…lived," he answers, carefully.

There isn't any reason for Mail not to think him absolutely bat-shit crazy. But he's telling Mail because Mail is his spectator, the one thing that makes him _real_, makes him more than the punch-line in a tragic, tragic story. Mail has to know everything that he does, all of the time.

"Go on," Mail prompts.

Raye glares at him.

"Why shouldn't I try? I was never happy, except when I was with her. When I was married to _her_. Even before I met her, my life was just…pointless. I don't want to change anything. I just want…all I care about is the days we spent together. Even if we were getting our asses kicked. Even if we were here, with _him_. I want to relive my time with her. Even just a day. A second. I don't care."

Mail nods, once.

"You want to time-travel," he states, sagely.

"Why not?" Raye yells. "We're all in the fucking afterlife anyway. There's obviously more to this fucked-up universe than what science tells us! Why shouldn't I try? I have nothing left to lose!"

"You shouldn't try," Mail enunciates, "because it is fucking impossible."

"I told you not to try and stop me," Raye whispers, threateningly. "I don't care what you think!"

Mail retrieves his cigarette and tucks it behind his ear, then reaches for the sliding door.

"I won't stop you," he deadpans. "But there's something I want to show you, first."

* * *

Mail's room is both filthy and sparse. There isn't any mess, because he barely owns anything other than a broken rosary and a few sets of clothes, but everything is covered in dust and stained with nicotine and sweat. His bed is disgusting, but the pillow is slightly less grotty than the mattress.

_Naomi did that_, Raye thinks, sadly. _Naomi was the one who cut his hair, and made him keep it clean._

Mail might only care about his precious Mello, but he'll suffer from Naomi's passing, too. Even if he's too selfish to realize it.

If Raye could go back, if Raye could see her again. Even for the briefest of moments, it wouldn't matter. It would be one more time, and he would have the chance to tell her, _oh god_, tell her _everything_ that he's missing, now, and he could be happy again.

So Raye will try. He'll try until it kills him, until he destroys everything. Nothing that Mail could show him will ever change his mind.

And he doesn't _want_ to see this place. He's not going to turn into Mail. Not for a very long time, if Raye has anything to do with it.

Mail seems to be oblivious to both the grime and Raye's discomfort. He marches over to his closet – the only other item of furniture in the room – and yanks it open. Several piles of paper spill onto the floor by his feet. Raye wanders up behind him and stares.

He'd presumed the closet would be just one more shrine to what's-his-face, but it isn't. It's filled with paper. Charts and notes. Raye selects a sheaf at random and stares at it. It's practically gibberish, a mishmash of numbers and vectors and times.

"I said it was impossible," Mail tells him softly, "because I know. I _know._"

Raye stares at him, with mounting horror. With mounting awe.

"You," he chokes. "You've already tried to do this?"

Mail smiles bitterly and doesn't meet his eyes.

"Everyone wants to be happy, right?"

Raye shakes his head, reaches for another piece of paper. A third. A fourth. Mail's research is so much more advanced than anything he could ever hope to produce. Lengthy calculations and imaginary numbers and hardcore physics. Complicated spreadsheets. _Engine_ designs.

_There must be thousands of pages in here_, Raye thinks, and the sheer impossibility of it all hits him like a sack of cement.

"I did this years ago," Mail continues. "Not long after I first started working for L. If you want, you can use my research to get started. But…I swear to you, it's impossible. Otherwise, I never would have..never would…have…"

_What the hell was I thinking_, Raye wonders. _I'm actually going mad. This is it. This is the beginning. _

His future is inevitable, and he _knows_ that. He's known it all along, all _week_.

And Mail. Mail worked so hard. For months on end, maybe. Mail dealt with this same, insane hope, and the same life-shattering disappointment, and they're both just.

Broken.

Wasted.

Raye unclenches his fist, letting the papers drift gently to the carpet. He grabs Mail around the shoulders in a rough hug.

_You._

_How much are you hurting?_

_Naomi loved me, married me, devoted her life to me, but that bastard never even looked at you twice._

"I'm sorry," Raye says, out loud. "I'm sorry for all of this."

It's hard to tell whether Mail is tense, or whether he just lacks the necessary soft parts to properly reciprocate. Mail _hates_ being touched, though, so it's probably the former.

He hates being touched, and yet, he couldn't be _bothered_ to resist, that night. The other night. When Raye nearly…

"I'm sorry," Raye says again, and he's possibly crying.

Mail is pretty much just a sack of bones, fragile and uncomfortable and light. It's amazing he's even still alive at all.

"It's okay," Mail says, distantly, and presses one palm between Raye's shoulder-blades.

"Nothing is okay," Raye tells him, pulling back and letting his arms drop to his sides. "Nothing about any of this is okay. You and me, we're both fucked."

"Mmm," Mail says, sweeping the fruits of his research back into the closet with one foot. "_I'm_ fucked. But…I don't think you have to be. I don't think you should be me. I think you should go and get your life back."

Mail is the resident expert on grief, and _everything_ that he says is pretty much gospel. Raye feels strange. Different. Like something has snapped inside him.

Something ugly. Something unnecessary.

Maybe this is what he's been waiting for, all along.

Mail can't be his future if Mail refuses to be his future. And Raye's not. He's not okay.

But maybe he could be. One day.

"It's what Naomi would want, right?" Mail asks, gently.

Raye grins, sudden and stupid and completely inappropriate.

"Yeah," he agrees. "It is."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ estimated time of next update: two to four weeks.

+ thank you for reading, and for your patience with my slow-ass updates. I really appreciate it. thank you.


	54. Quietly

notes/warnings

+ STUFF ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN THIS CHAPTER! GO ME!

+ swearing/mention of racial crimes/character with overtly misogynistic opinions

+ long chapter is long

+ okay, so not that much stuff happens. :/

* * *

**Quietly**

Raye and Rae start work on yet another case. Privately, Mail thinks that Rae is probably accepting any reasonably-complex job that it can find. It isn't trying to be the best detective. It's trying to hurt L.

Mail thinks maybe L never should have gotten involved with the Shinigami in the first place. It has brought so much unhappiness to his life. To _everyone's_ lives.

Still, Raye seems to be more functional this evening than he's been in a long time. He's sitting up straight, his expression is focused, and from what Mail can hear, he's actively participating in Rae's newest investigation.

Maybe…maybe Mail did something right, then. Maybe Mail actually managed to _help_.

Whatever. He won't be doing it again, that's for sure. He's physically and emotionally exhausted. He keeps having flashbacks to that awful moment when he learned that Mello was _gone_ and _in hell_ and _never coming back. _

He'd go back in a heartbeat, if he could. Back to the mildew-infested apartment, strewn with cigarette butts and chocolate wrappers. Back to the days when he cared about beating the next level, and fantasized about dating Samus Aran. Back to the days when Mello always came home at some godforsaken hour, shirt too short and pants too tight, hair perfect, mood feral. Back to the days when Mello _always came home_, and so Mail could be a person, because the foundations of his universe were in place.

He studied so hard, trying to build that time machine. Stupid fuckin' dream.

Stupid fuckin' Raye Penber, sitting in his desk-chair, eating an entire take-away container of creamy pasta. Mail can't eat at all. Doesn't want to eat at all. Even the fucking Shinigami is stealing the leftover mashed potato from the lid, but Mail never eats.

He used to eat.

It doesn't matter. He can't live in the past, because Mello will never come home. He needs to be here, so he can help L and accompany Raye and pray and pray and pray. He needs to be here so that people will remember Mello.

No one should ever be able to forget him. Everyone should know his name, his face, and what he died for. What he suffered for.

_You got so much less than you deserved, doll._

L sends Mail a message. They're changing cases. The news-hacker hasn't made any other moves, and someone recently massacred a bunch of people at New Eltham College, Bromley. L isn't trying to compete with Rae. L is trying to be a good person. That's all he ever fucking does, all he can ever do. He puts his life at risk and sacrifices his own fuckin' health and makes people hate him – even when he really, really cares about them – because that's what he does.

And Mail…Mail hacks things.

Mail sends back a quick 'affirmative', closes his current browser, and opens another. He'd follow L to the ends of the earth.

It's not like he has anything better to do.

* * *

When Raye wakes up, Naomi is still dead and L is still evil and Mail is sitting on the floor. And he wants to bury his head under the covers and spend another half hour feeling sorry for himself. But he doesn't. He gets up.

There's a rapist out there who needs catching, and Rae can't succeed on its own.

* * *

It's an unusual case for L – there's been no threat of a second attack – but the police have requested his help. And with Rae probably planning his untimely demise and Buzz waiting in the wings to take over, L is hardly in a position to refuse.

According to the police report, the gunman left no evidence at all. No fingerprints, no discarded weapons, no witnesses. Or rather, there were plenty of witnesses, but '_a figure in bulky clothes and a full-face mask' _is hardly a useful description.

On his desk he has a list of the dead. Thirty-nine students, all in the same class. Three staff members. None of the victims were injured. All were cleanly killed. The gunman knew what he was doing. Or he got very, very lucky.

And the motive is…unknown. Demographics do not indicate any pattern – socioeconomic, racial, religious, or otherwise – amongst the victims. No other classes were attacked. The gunman did not speak, and afterwards, ran away.

_Even sociopaths have something to say. Even if it's only 'fuck you all'. _

_Was this just a fit of mania, then? A protest? An example?_

He needs to go to the university itself. He ought to see, firsthand, where the gunman went.

And.

And.

One of the victim's names is….interesting. L touches the list with the tip of his forefinger, checking and re-checking.

_Professor James Lawliet. _

It means nothing. Next to nothing. Even if it is him, L never knew him. Never knew what he looked like. Never knew anything about him, except that Emma Wakefield was in love with him once.

And, now, that he is dead. Twice.

L contacts Watari and makes preparations to leave.

* * *

Raye keeps saying really bizarre, unrelated things. It's not actually hindering Rae's progress, because Rae is far too competent to be bothered by such trivialities. But it is…unusual. Noteworthy, maybe.

"There were another three attacks last night," Rae says, darkly. "One of the victims killed herself before morning. This…person is disgusting."

The second world is still filled with evil, despite the hell-filter, despite Takada's best efforts.

_Only I can make a difference._

_Only I can fix this._

"She was engaged, too," Raye notes, distantly. "You know, I was really, really lucky. I mean, given how much time I got to spend with Naomi."

_What the fuck is wrong with you? Innocent women are being attacked, and you're relating this to your perfect fucking marriage?_

_Selfish._

_Despicable._

_Selfish._

"Yes," Rae says, warmly. "You were lucky to have someone who genuinely cared for you."

Raye meets its eyes for a moment.

"I'm sorry about what L did to you," he says, heavily.

This is almost like a game. Working hatred for L into every glance, every conversation. It's easy and it's natural. It makes Rae feel a little better about the whole situation, and it is cementing Raye Penber's dubious loyalties.

_It might be enough just to make you leave_, Rae muses. _Then he'd have nobody left but Mail. _

It wonders if it could turn Watari against L, as well. That would be difficult and involved. A challenge. Still, it's not like Rae is particularly busy. It won't be able to make any _real_ difference to the state of the world until it has the notebook back.

Until it is king.

Rae laughs, sounding a little rueful, a little hurt. Raye is _so easy_ to manipulate. He's like a woman, almost.

"Yeah," it says, sadly, out loud. "I'm sorry, too."

* * *

Two hours and forty-five minutes later, the Eltham gunman case is unraveling like a ball of cheaply-spun yarn.

While Watari had scouted for physical evidence – using his now-superior, two-eyed vision – L had investigated the quarters of the murdered staff members for clues. The first victim, a janitor, was an avid philatelist. James Lawliet didn't keep any personal artifacts at work. And the unlucky lecturer, a Doctor Janet Dawson, had been conducting small group therapy sessions for five university students who were struggling to cope with arriving in the second world.

When they contacted the first student on the list she broke down and confessed to everything. Obtaining the gun, shooting the victims, and running away. Everything. Over the fucking _phone_.

L orders her arrest and goes to witness it in person. The case feels too easy, uncomfortably easy, like the hell-god is toying with him again.

And maybe he's getting paranoid. From the outset, he'd known this case was less complex than his old standards. He can't _work_ to his old standards any more, because he's.

He's getting old.

He's getting replaced.

And Reba Martinez _seems_ to be real, tangible and frightened in front of him, screaming at her arresting police officers about how she just wanted to _die_ and why don't they _understand_.

And L does understand. He does. He has to work with Mail every day, and Mail…Mail needed to die, really. To die and be dead. Sometimes people need to stop. Some people weren't meant to go on forever. But.

"Wanting to be dead does not excuse your ending dozens of lives," he says, softly.

He's wearing his mask. Watari is waiting in the car. Martinez looks right at him. She's young. Barely nineteen. She's only been in the second world for four weeks.

"They'll just go to the third world," she snorts. "It will never end. _Oh god! It will never end!_"

"No," L agrees, voice deadpan. "It will never end."

Martinez will never have to worry about the third world. Chances are, she'll end up in hell. But he doesn't tell her that.

He's not _that_ unkind.

* * *

When Raye wakes up, Naomi is still dead and L is still evil and Mail is sitting on the floor. And he doesn't want to get up, not really, but it's morning and the sun is shining, and Naomi always loved sunshine.

* * *

A week goes by. Rae catches eight criminals. L catches two. According to the news, Buzz cracks a massive underground drug-dealer ring in South Africa.

L doesn't see Rae at all, but that's. That's fine.

They have four months left, until Rae's time is up. L still doesn't know whether he ought to use the notebook. He cannot use it. Rae is convinced that he has no choice but to use it. Rae is so convinced of this that it cannot even be bothered to torture, terrorise, or bully him into submission.

Or perhaps Rae is more frightened of him that it is eager to become king. Perhaps he has overridden its one goal, its only desire, because he hurt it so badly that it cannot stand to be near him. To speak to him.

Perhaps.

L rolls onto his side, tucks his knees under his chin. Sometimes, he cannot sleep. Sometimes he feels like Rae is everywhere. Brown-eyed Rae. In his head, under his skin, everywhere in the locked room. Sometimes he expects to wake and find Rae looming over him. Malevolent, benevolent. Red eyes, brown eyes; L doesn't care. Rae is one entity, and he loves it, and Rae is never there. Can never be there. What they had is over.

Sometimes L aches.

And he's not… he's not the type of person who needs physical pleasure. He's never cared for sex, by his own hands or anyone else's, but Rae changed that. For a while. When they were together. When they still had a chance. L wanted things. Wants things.

Which is ridiculous. Rae is a Shinigami, and he has no right to want anything from it. It owes him nothing, and now it hates him. And that is fine.

And he still aches.

L has never been in love before. Not really. Not as an adult. Not like _this._

Maybe once. Maybe when he was six years old, and that boy had just..._decided_ they were going to be friends. Declared it, even. That sort of thing wasn't done in Japan, wasn't done _anywhere_, but he had never seemed to care. He had always seemed to get away with everything, too smart by half.

Until the Shyster broke him.

People like his mother, people like Light, they don't just ruin lives. They destroy lives. They change other people exponentially, make them insane, or useless, or debilitated. Light, especially. Light killed hundreds of people – maybe thousands – but he ruined millions of lives.

And L. L hurt Rae. Because he had no other option.

But he needs to be careful. He needs to be careful not to just presume he knows best. Not to presume that because he got things right with Rae, that he can hurt someone any time the urge strikes him, and it will be for the greater good.

He needs to be _so_ careful.

Emma Wakefield was selfish and evil. And from all the evidence L can garner, James Lawliet was neutral. Neither bad nor good. Ordinary. Witnesses say he ran towards the sound of gunshot, because he had hoped that he could save someone. Maybe slightly better than ordinary.

L isn't the sum of the people who made him, though. Not morally. Nobody is the moral median of their parents. James Lawliet is nobody. A statistic, an ordinary man, and a usefully unusual last name.

L needs to always try to do the right thing.

He has to never turn into Light.

He has to never use the notebook.

And he has to hope and pray that in refusing to do so, he's not somehow harming Rae.

* * *

When Raye wakes up, Naomi is still dead and L is still evil and Mail is sitting on the floor. This time, Mail is running his fingers over his precious drawing of Mello.

_I'm never going to be that broken_, Raye thinks, promises himself, promises Naomi, and gets up.

* * *

A few cases later, they take on a team of probable serial killers. Twelve people have disappeared from the Manchester area in the past four days. All were of Indian descent. Rae goes off to investigate.

Raye eats macaroni and cheese for lunch. He _loves_ macaroni and cheese.

He still has no idea what he's supposed to do with his life. But Mail said…Mail said he ought to get better. Mail said Naomi would want that. And she would. Raye knew her better than anyone else in the world.

She'd want him to be strong. She'd want him to go on. And…she'd want him to be happy.

He's not happy, and he's not strong. But…the food is good.

Rae comes back with bad news; it has found a lot of freshly-dug earth in a forest bordering on Manchester city. But the connection is too tenuous to involve police without doing a little…digging, first.

"Are you up to this?" Rae asks, voice soft and concerned, _so_ different from L.

Raye needs to go. Raye needs to go and possibly uncover a lot of dead bodies. He has to, otherwise the murderers may never be brought to justice.

It will be the first time he's left the building since Naomi's funeral. And Raye isn't ready. Not…not for everything.

"I think I can handle it," he says, with a weak smile. "But only if Mail comes, too."

At the other end of the room, Mail lifts his head and shrugs.

"I'm not doing anything right now," he announces.

"Of course you're not," Rae mutters. "You're working for _him_."

"I'm sorry," Raye says, hanging his head. He knows it's difficult for Rae to stay here. He knows that the more time Rae has to spend with _anyone_ who's allied to L, the more likely L is to find another way to assassinate it.

Wait. Does that mean Raye doesn't classify himself as being allied to L any more?

The concept of not working _for_ L does sound tantalizingly good. But Raye can't make those sorts of decisions. Not yet.

"It's fine," Rae says, loudly enough that Mail can hear. "Mail can come with us. That's…that's okay."

* * *

Mail goes, and they dig up a bunch of dead bodies, several murder weapons, and enough forensic evidence to arrest the entirety of the newly-developing Manchester-based neo-Nazi movement.

"I don't know how you did it," a local police detective gushes. "How did you even know where to start looking?"

Raye Penber stares at the ground, but he mumbles something semi-coherent about doing a thorough job and just getting lucky. He's doing well, actually leaving the building, and talking to people he doesn't know.

He's doing well, for a self-important self-pitying mentally ill moral Neanderthal. But that's okay. That's important. He's taking steps away from L, and that's important.

Because if he stays, Rae has an ally. But, if he leaves?

Rae can tell him anything. Rae can say that L is committing crimes, L is hurting innocent people, L is abusing his position of power, L _tried to kill Rae again and Rae is just so scared and sad._

Rae isn't scared. Or sad. Rae is angry. Rae is going to fucking get even, and L is going to know all about it.

Because even if he leaves, Raye Penber still has intimate knowledge of L's headquarters. The windows. The weak points. _L_'s weak points. And if Raye leaves L's service, Rae is absolutely confident that it can convince him to assassinate L. Or at the very least, have him imprisoned for the unlawful scum that he is.

"Please extend L's condolences to the victims' families," Raye finishes, with an awkward little bow. "We really must be getting back to base now."

"Good job," Rae says brightly, to Raye and _not_ to Mail.

No matter what happens, Rae will win. Rae will _win_. Like always. Like everything should be. Should have been…

That doesn't matter any more. Rae is stronger now. Stronger and more capable and _still right_. And it will see L suffer and struggle and _plead for death_ before the end.

It's only a matter of time.

* * *

Raye drags him out grocery shopping because apparently, now that he's feeling better, Mail is forced to be an active witness to every aspect of his daily life.

"Oh hey. Syrupy Fruity Honey Puffs. I haven't had these in years," Raye murmurs, and shoots Mail a tiny smile. "The only cereal in the second world that is over ninety-nine percent sugar."

Mail tries to smile back, but he can't. He doesn't smile any more. He doesn't have anything left to smile about. He stays at one end of the confectionary aisle, trembling and near-catatonic, because it's filled with chocolate. Filled with memories of a completely different, second-rate, first-world shopping mall, where Mello used to buy a whole trolley full of candy bars and bulk-sized bags of cocoa, and Mail used to help carry it all back to the car and he was _happy_ and _he still wants to go back_.

He wants to curl up in Mello's bed, one more time. He knows, he just _knows_, that if he went back to that tiny, dilapidated apartment, he'd be able to sleep soundly. For the first time in almost a decade.

But it isn't enough. He can't ask for _just once_, because he doesn't dare pray for anything more than Mello's health, Mello's safety. Even if his prayers are answered, Mail will never know. Mail will never see Mello. But that is all he can ask for. Just. Just in case.

Just in case someone is listening.

* * *

L spends the next two weeks working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, investigating a possible case of corruption in the United States police force.

He doesn't ask if they've also contracted Buzz, or whether they would have preferred Buzz, or why they've chosen him instead.

He doesn't really want to know.

* * *

When Raye wakes up, Naomi is still dead and L is still evil and Mail is sitting on the floor. And he doesn't want to get up, not really, but it's morning and…

Actually, he's kind of looking forward to the Syrupy Fruity Honey Puffs.

* * *

"You need to hand over the corruption case," Rae says, sudden and unexpected, its voice like hatred personified. "I won't let any more people suffer while you sit here and do _nothing_, monster."

Rae almost never comes to L's room. Looking up and finding it suddenly there is like the best of special treats, even if it has come to damn him, even if it loathes him with every fibre of its being.

The only success in L's miserable, failure-riddled life.

No. That isn't accurate. He's had dozens of successes. Hundreds. But that was before. Before, when he had Rae. And Naomi. And Matsuda. And before all of that, before he ever met Light.

How many good people does he need in his life before he can cancel out the damage that Light did to him?

One. One would be enough. One Rae.

"We could work together," L offers, voice silky and arrogant and inviting. "Think of how much fun that could be."

"No," Rae barks. "Do you really think I'd be stupid enough to trust you again?"

L smiles. Fake email messages aren't enough. He needs to go on being dangerous. He needs to always be a threat.

"I'm counting on it," he replies.

"I'm counting on your life running out," Rae answers, fast and sickly-sweet.

"Your stupidity versus my mortality," L murmurs, thoughtfully. "But you _loved_ me, Rae, didn't you?"

"No," Rae says, coldly, as if L has used the most disgusting and grotesque slur imaginable. "I'm not _weak _like you."

"And I shall not be handing over this case," L replies. "Now, either kill me or love me or go away, please. You are impeding my research."

Rae leaves with a nasty little laugh, and L throws himself back into his work. Because Rae is right, of course. Since he made the decision not to work with Rae, he needs to solve this case quickly on his own, so that no innocent people are harmed.

* * *

The next time Rae needs him to leave the building, they're in a rush. The suspect is about to leave the country, and they don't have the evidence to ask airport security to stop him. Raye doesn't have the chance to grab Mail and bring him with them, but in the adrenaline-fuelled pandemonium, he barely has time to feel alone.

* * *

"Thank you for your help, today," Rae says cheerfully.

Raye Penber is like a small dog. Like the little dog Rae got for L, that day when they were eating blancmange and Naomi was listening at the door and they were still…

_Don't think about that_!

This must be part of the test. Rae doesn't seem to have the same ironclad control over its own thoughts as it used to. And that's…terrifying, but it's also fine. The test is finite. Rae is undamaged. Rae can fly.

Raye Penber is like a dog, in that he's easily trained. A few kind words, and he's practically _begging_ to be used against L.

"No problem," Raye replies, looking pleased with himself. "Someone here needs to help you, after all."

His voice drops in the last sentence, becoming almost a hiss. Raye is working a dislike of L into every other sentence, without any prompting from Rae at all.

_Good._

_Soon_.

Rae still isn't sure what it wants to do, but having options is never a bad thing. L may self-destruct all on his own, and that would be a beautiful thing to witness. Too beautiful to interfere, certainly.

But Raye, Raye is the insurance policy.

"So you're only assisting me out of pity?" Rae asks, softly. "I didn't realize that."

"That's not it at all. I support you," Raye says, quickly and emphatically. "I'm on your side. After what he did, I'm definitely on your side."

In the confines of its own mind, Rae _smiles_.

_That was easy_.

"I don't want you stuck here because of me," Rae tells him. "If being in this place upsets you, I'd prefer that you leave. I don't want him hurting anyone else."

It's time. Raye is finally weaning himself from his dependence on Mail. It's time to break him away from L completely.

"What would happen to you if I left?" Raye asks, carefully, hesitantly, like a good little puppet.

"Well, I'd have trouble solving cases, but only for a limited period of time," Rae tells him. "Plus, if I needed to, I could show myself to Buzz or one of the other detectives. Please don't think that I don't have options."

Raye stares at his hands.

"I'll…keep that in mind," he says quietly. "But right now, I'm here, and I'm working with you."

"Understood," Rae replies, and it's as easy as that.

* * *

L manages to crack the corruption case, and is re-hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help locate a fugitive fraudster. He travels around a lot, with Watari, just like the old days. He doesn't talk about Rae. He and Watari have never spoken of personal details, not even when L was small.

Sometimes he wishes Matsuda was still around. Or Rem. Someone unrelated, someone he could chat with about Rae and Light and the hell-god and trying to save the world.

But then he remembers that Matsuda wouldn't have understood, and Rem would only be disappointed in him for falling for Rae.

Buzz hasn't been mentioned in the news for over a week, though, and L considers that a victory. To celebrate, he buys ten jam-filled croissants from a French bakery, and eats them in one sitting.

* * *

In his spare time, Raye starts reading novels again. Criminal masterminds and murder-mysteries. He likes the stories. He likes reading about things that interest him in a fictional context, where no one can ever be hurt, and the ending is set in stone.

He'd like to know how it all ends. He wants to know whether he'll wind up in hell, in nothingness, or if he'll slide through the worlds forever. He wants to know if he'll see Naomi again. He wants to know what their child looks like, and how it feels to get up for the seventh time at three in the morning because the baby is grizzling. He wants everything.

But there is something satisfying about saving people. There's something comforting about Rae's companionship, and maybe Raye can go on like this, for a little longer.

Raye gets up to go to bed, and Mail gets up to follow him. He's in the middle of some case with L, papers strewn all over his desk and computer.

"It's all right," Raye says, automatically, without thinking. "You can keep working here."

Mail doesn't look surprised, because Mail is incapable of such a neutral emotion, and Raye is really fucking glad he's not going to end up like that.

* * *

The first two nights, Raye reads until he falls asleep, afraid to look at the walls, afraid to see them closing in, afraid he'll be crushed in the ensuing collision.

On the third night, he's too exhausted to care. He sleeps and wakes and the room is the same size, unmoving, just an ordinary room. Naomi is still dead and he doesn't know where Mail is, but he's _okay. _He isn't dying.

Raye suddenly feels free, unanchored, like he's beaten the final crutch of his grief. Like he can go anywhere he wants, and do anything he wants to do.

So…what does he want to do?

* * *

Raye packs everything that he owns into boxes. A few outfits, a few books, a few tools, and a metric fucktonne of Naomi's old possessions. He finds an apartment in Enfield; far enough that he's unlikely to run into his colleagues, and close enough that Rae can still reach him quickly if it needs him.

Because this is what he wants to do. He wants to be free from L. From L, who destroys people he ought to care about. From L, who calmly discussed Rae's murder with Naomi in _email messages_, like he was discussing the _laundry_ or something.

Raye can live without Mail, and he can't live with L, and Rae…Rae practically gave him permission. He's leaving it here all alone, without support, but it only has to survive another three months. And there haven't been many cases, recently. It's been a quiet few weeks.

He won't tell L. He'll hand him his resignation once he's ready to leave. That is all L deserves, and that is all Raye will give him.

The Shinigami walks through the wall when he's sealing up the last box, and looks around approvingly.

"Good," it says, calmly. "Now he can't claim credit for your work any more."

"I didn't want to tell you like this," Raye replies, flustered. "I was going to come and say goodbye properly. I just. I just have to do this."

L has become such a terrifying thing. The monster under Raye's bed. The demon in the corner of his mind. L gets everyone killed, sooner or later, and Raye wants to _live_. He has to live, so that he can go on remembering Naomi.

He can still remember the sound of Rae's voice when it saw those messages, soft and lost and miserable.

_No. No. Fuck you. No._

He can't. He can't live with this. He's running away, and that is selfish, but it's the first selfish thing he's done in _months_, and he feels good.

"You're leaving today?"

"Yes," Raye confirms. "I had…I had to pack everything up before I could be sure that I could do it. But I can. You should come with me."

"I'll come and visit you when I'm king," Rae offers, and every lingering doubt in Raye's mind is swept away.

The Shinigami will be fine. It's a Shinigami. A god. Of _death. _It isn't easy to kill. And now, at least, L can't try to use him against it.

Not that Raye would ever, ever let him do that. But still. It's L. When it comes to manipulating people, he's second only to _Light._

"I'll be living at 24 Greenbatch Street," Raye tells it. "Nobody else will know the address. Please come and find me if you need me. If he tries anything. I'll support you."

"That means a lot to me," Rae says warmly. "Thank you."

Three months. Three months isn't that long.

"What will you do to pass the time?" Raye enquires.

"I've been thinking of haunting the universities," Rae says, easily. "I'm actually heading over to Bedford right now. There's a master locksmith there who's training a new apprentice. He's supposed to be the best in Britain. And, they do say you can never learn enough. A good detective should never stop trying to improve themselves."

Raye grins to himself. Rae is such a _decent_ Shinigami.

God, he hates L. He hates L for everything. Semi-human emotionally-retarded shell of a man.

"Good. Stay away from here as much as you can," Raye agrees, getting to his feet. "I hope everything works out for you."

"I'll be fine," Rae replies. "I'm always fine. And…I never lose. Don't worry."

"All right," Raye says, a little gruffly. "Take care of yourself."

"You too."

With that, Rae floats out of the room. Raye supposes Shinigami aren't big on saying goodbye.

Now, he has to talk to Mail.

* * *

Rae rests its head against the wall, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

Raye Penber is leaving. Everything is falling into place. And soon, L will be destroyed.

It's a good day. A perfect day.

* * *

Sometimes, on the really good days, Mail can remember exactly how he felt when he shot Takada in the alleyway. It is the best second-world memory that he has, the one moment he was truly alive, and he treasures it alongside the rosary and the drawing and every second he spent with Mello.

He's helping L research a serial kidnapper, and he really ought to be paying attention. But L and Watari are off on a job and Rae isn't here, and there are no audio taps in this room and his desk is in the blind spot of the security system. It's not like anyone will _know _that he's slacking off. Hell, that was one of Mail's conditions of working here in the first place. He doesn't want to be monitored all the fucking time.

Mail turns and gazes at the window. The sun is high in the sky. It's a beautiful day. Mail knows, categorically, that it's a beautiful day. He just doesn't give a damn.

_I hope you're okay, doll. I hope…I hope they're not hurting you. _

And then Raye bursts into his office like the annoying dick that he is, and locks the door behind him.

"I need to talk to you for a minute," he says, quickly.

Mail lifts his head. Raye is wearing his coat and hat. He looks like he's about to go out somewhere. He'd better not be asking Mail to go with him.

"Is this about a case?" he monotones. "Because I'm kind of-"

"I'm leaving," Raye says, and the absence of elucidation is more of an answer than his words.

If he was going temporarily, he'd have said as much.

"You're quitting the team," Mail says, quietly.

"Yes. Right now. Today."

Mail nods. This is probably the best thing that Raye can do. He's not happy with this type of job, and he'd probably be better making a new start for himself. It's not something that Mail could ever do, but that's okay. They're different.

Raye gets to get better, and Mail got to kill Takada. They're practically even.

"We'll have to change all the passwords and locks again," Mail points out. "Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

It doesn't really make a difference to Mail, but losing a man will hurt L. He's already lost two. Or three, if Rae counts.

And Raye fucking left once before, and then fucking came _back_, and Mail is getting really sick of having to constantly update the system security.

"Yes," Raye tells him. "I'm sure. I don't want this to be a big thing. I just came to say goodbye. And…thank you."

Mail wonders, absently, whether this is the Shinigami's doing. He wonders whether it will consider Raye's leaving to be beneficial or detrimental. He wonders, but it's not like he'll ever find out. It's not like the blasted thing will ever talk to _him_.

Mail doesn't get up from his chair.

"It isn't a big thing," he agrees. He doesn't understand, but he pretends to anyway. L asked him to look after Raye. "And I'm not really surprised. This job is fuckin' exhausting. And…you're probably better off going and making new routines, right?"

"That's not why," Raye says, voice suddenly dark and unpleasant. "I'm not leaving because of the work. Or because of Naomi. I thought you, of all people, would know that."

Mail stares at him irritably.

"Why should I know that? I don't fuckin' understand you."

"Well, I'm _telling you_," Raye says sharply. "This is about _him_."

"That isn't very specific."

"The fuckhead who _pays you_!"

Mail blinks. Sometimes Raye is really fucking stupid.

"This is about L?" he clarifies.

"It's about _what L did to Rae_."

Mail blinks again. His head is starting to ache.

"What L did to-"

"I can't fucking _live_ with someone like that!" Raye yells. "We had no evidence that Rae was ever going to harm anyone, but L decided he had to fucking _dispose_ of it just because of its _species_. I can't stand him and I can't trust him and I will not ever, ever forgive him. He tried to hurt someone who cared for him, because he _could_. I don't want to work for someone like that. I don't want to ever see him again!"

Mail stays where he is, trying to process everything that Raye has just said.

_This is about L._

_This is about_.

Raye Penber wasn't like this before. He was never so staunchly allied with the Shinigami, not until he started spending all his time with it. It has done this. It has made him hate L, and Mail can't blame it for trying to defend itself, but this is an utter fucking mess.

"And that's the _only_ reason you're leaving?" Mail asks, finally.

Raye tugs at his hair with both hands.

"Isn't that _enough?_" he demands. "I don't know how you can stand to be _near_ him."

"Where is the Shinigami now?" Mail asks.

"Headed to Bedford."

"It already left?"

"_Yes_," Raye growls, narrowing his eyes. "Why do you want to know? Please tell me you're not planning to help him murder it."

Mail isn't like Raye. He isn't incapable of making decisions for himself. He's definitely not incapable of targeted and discerning mutiny. L will be devastated if Raye leaves. Impossibly, Mail feels like the single adult in a classroom filled with children.

He's too fucking broken for this level of responsibility.

* * *

Mail gets to his feet, which is really fucking weird.

"Come here," he says, softly. "Come over to the desk, Raye."

Raye stiffens.

"Why?"

"Because it's out of view of the cameras," Mail explains, matter-of-factly. "I am going to tell you something that you need to know now, but you are never, ever to share this information with anyone else. _Anyone_. Not even Rae. _Especially _not Rae."

Raye approaches the desk warily. This doesn't make any fucking sense. This is all part of L's plan to harm Rae. It must be. There's no other good reason. He needs to get out of here before they can use him against the person he's trying to protect.

"Does this information impact on Rae's safety?" he asks, harshly.

Mail grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him across the desk, crashing their foreheads together, and Raye is suddenly terrified that maybe Mail fell for him, that night when they almost-

No, that's ridiculous. But this whole situation is ridiculous, too. There is nothing that Mail could possibly tell him that will change his mind.

"You need to be quiet," Mail whispers, and he smells awful. "And no, this doesn't affect the fuckin' skeleton. Now _listen_. Those messages were fake."

Raye is sure that somewhere in Mail's nutrition-starved, grief-stricken, madness-overrun mind that those words make some sort of relevant sense.

"Who in the what now?"

Mail sighs, but does not release his grip on Raye. Raye is starting to worry that maybe he's actually gone mad, and maybe Raye should have just slipped out quietly and not come to say farewell at all. Maybe L is manipulating Mail because he knows Mail is insane. Raye wouldn't put it past the fucking bastard.

Mail rolls his eyes.

"Do you remember," he says, slowly, "the day when you and Rae discovered those emails between Naomi and L? About…about how to kill a god of death?"

"_Yes_," Raye tells him, annoyed. "Of course I remember. How could I forget _that_?"

"Well, I made all of those emails," Mail breathes. "They weren't real. I created them on that day."

"No, you didn't," Raye tells him, with a tremendous amount of patience. "Those were between _L_ and my _wife._"

"No," Mail says, tersely. "I created them. About five minutes before you read them. L instructed me to make them. He intended for Rae to see them. He wanted Rae to hate him. That's why he did it."

Raye wonders if he's dreaming.

"That doesn't even make sense," he snarls. "Why would you do that? Why would L want Rae to hate him?"

"Because…look, I don't understand all of it, but don't you remember how Rae's eyes used to be brown? And how it used to move more slowly and have trouble flying?"

Raye tries to remember. It's hard. He can't recall much of anything that happened before Naomi died. But yes…okay. He does kind of remember that.

"When Rae is like that, Rae is damaged. Sick. The longer it stays like that, the worse it gets."

"Did you learn this from L?" Raye asks, because L is fucking malevolent and they shouldn't believe a word he says.

"Eh, I'd seen it for myself, but it was L who worked out _why_. Apparently, the more Rae cares for him, the more debilitated it becomes."

Mail sucks in deep breath and ploughs on, one impossible statement after the other.

"He only figured it out that morning. And he called me and had me make those messages, so that Rae would be angry and stop caring for him and be safe. There. Now you know."

Raye pushes both hands over his eyes. This is. No. This can't be. L doesn't do things like that. This has to be a lie. Somehow. There are so many things wrong here that he can't even begin to fathom it.

"Why would L want to protect a Shinigami?" he manages.

Mail snorts.

"Because he likes it. A lot, I think. I dunno. He doesn't talk to me about this stuff, thank fuck."

"That can't even be possible," Raye says, triumphantly. "Those messages were sent _weeks and weeks_ earlier. You can't have made them up on the day we found them."

"I backdated them," Mail says, simply. "I'm a hacker, Raye. I can do things like that. Pretty effectively, too."

_No_, Raye thinks, shaking his head.

_L is._

_L is trying to….look after…Rae?_

_L went to all this trouble?_

Is it even possible? After all these months of loathing L, could it be that he was wrong? That Rae is wrong? That Rae is safe, all along.

"You can still leave, if you want to," Mail says, softly. "It's just. He's not fuckin' evil. I didn't want you to go and think that he was. And you must never, _ever_ tell Rae, or all of this will be in vain."

Raye clenches his hands into fists.

"But Rae…Rae cared about L, too. This isn't fair."

"So what was he supposed to do? Let it get sick?" Mail asks. "You're being unreasonable. He did the best he could do. Rae might feel hurt and betrayed, but it will leave here unscathed, right?"

This is the stupidest, most ridiculous situation Raye has ever heard of. He wonders if L has set this up, somehow, to convince him to stay and support L so that L can eventually kill Rae. Maybe he's lied to Mail exactly the way Mail is lying to Raye right now.

But.

Didn't L once speak of another Shinigami? Ren, or something. L referred to it as being a friend.

Yes. Yes he did. And he's never shown murderous inclination to anyone, or anything else. Even Raye can see that, and Raye _hates_ him. But god, if this is real…

Raye kind of crumples against the desk. He can't process all of this. He can't _fathom_ these stupid fucking geniuses and their stupid fucking plans and _everything_.

"Can you prove to me that the emails were fake?"

"Not unless you spend six weeks in an intensive computer-hacking course," Mail replies. "You don't believe me?"

If this is real…

It must be so painful to turn someone you like against you. It must be the worst feeling in the world. You'd have to be the _best_ sort of person just to go through with it. And that's.

That's the L Naomi always spoke of. The good man. The hero.

"I believe you," Raye whispers. He hates this. He hates all of this.

"Good," Mail says, businesslike. "If you tell L what you know, he'll be furious. Please pretend that you don't know any of this. I don't want to have to talk about it again."

"Right," Raye says, faintly, barely listening.

"So," Mail prompts. "What are you going to do now?"

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ estimated time of next update: two to three weeks again, guys. maybe less if I'm lucky.

+ thank you for reading, and reviewing, and for being so patient with my inability to update on time. I really appreciate it.


	55. Revelations

notes/warnings

+ so, this chapter is about two months late. I don't have any excuses for this, and I won't insult you all by making any, either. I owe an apology to all of you who have waited, and especially to those of you who have sent me PMs and comments and I haven't responded. I'm not abandoning this fic, and I haven't stopped plotting it or thinking about it, but I am having a really hard time actually getting it down on paper, and that may or may not change. it might be two months til the next update. I can't really say. but short of me actually dying or getting amnesia or going blind or something, I _will_ finish this fic. thank you for bearing with me through all this rubbish and false promises. I appreciate every single one of you.

+ usual warnings for languages.

* * *

**Revelations**

Jas pauses, midway through tugging the last pumpkin free from the vine. She rubs one hand across her grubby forehead, the dirt dissolving in its wake.

"Fuck," she mutters, emphatically.

* * *

L manages to find a lead on the kidnapping case. A single footprint in the snow. It's not much to go on, but it's a start.

He's cross-referencing the shoe type when someone knocks three times on his door. Raye. It must be Raye. Watari only ever knocks twice, and Mail and Rae don't bother knocking at all.

L wonders if he has come to resign. Or if Rae has finally convinced him to hurt L. The latter is unlikely, though. In this situation, in his own headquarters, L has too much support and too much power. It would be better to wait until L leaves on a case, and then follow him. And since Rae is tremendously clever, it will select an ideal case, where L's death can be blamed on one of the suspects.

But the Shinigami still needs him to write in the notebook. Probably. Maybe. L isn't sure what it wants any more, and he misses that closeness, those days when he and Rae seemed to be almost perfectly synchronized in their thoughts.

"Yes?"

There is no need for him to be rude to Raye. He only hates _Shinigami_, after all.

"Hi," Raye says, pushing the door aside with an awkward sort of gesture. His expression is vague, his movements uncomfortable, and his hair is pressed flat against his head like he's recently been wearing a hat.

Which is strange, because he hasn't left the building at all today. But people grieve in mysterious ways, and it isn't L's place to judge.

"What do you want?" L asks, gently.

Raye clasps his hands together and stares at them.

"I want," he says slowly. "I want to work with you again."

L blinks. This is…not what he expected at all.

"I thought you were working with Rae?"

Raye finally makes eye contact.

"I'm done with that," he says, firmly. "Don't get me wrong. I don't fucking approve of what you did. But…Rae is a god of death. And. I want to start working amongst the living again. Is that okay with you?"

L suspects that there's more to Rae's reasoning than that. Perhaps Rae, in its defensive and volatile state, has inadvertently offended him. Or perhaps he's finally acknowledging Naomi's long-standing distrust of the Shinigami.

Or perhaps this is all part of Rae's plan.

Even if this _is_ according to Rae's designs, there is nothing L can do about it. He cannot – and _will_ not – fight his Shinigami.

But Raye wants to work with him, however temporarily, and that's. That's something. It's lonely, only working with Mail. Three people, at least, is enough to be a proper team.

A proper _team_.

"It's fine with me," he says, softly, and grins.

* * *

"_Uuuuuuncle!" Gemma yells, joyfully running across the lawn to throw herself at the lower part of your legs._

"_Hey," you tell her, awkwardly. You haven't seen her in months. It's a miracle that you're seeing her today._

_It's a miracle that you haven't fucked up yet. But you've been careful. So careful. You've been writing things down and checking and double-checking everything you do, and it's all paid off._

_Today, you are allowed to visit the Jeevases._

_Under supervision, of course. _

_Gemma is so different, now. She's vertical instead of horizontal, and she's got a full head of strawberry-blonde hair and she's capable of running and hugging and words. You've been with her for about eight seconds, and you're already so so amazed by everything she does._

"_Sorry," Jasmine says, ambling into view. "She thinks everyone is 'aunty' or 'uncle' at the minute. We're trying to teach her not to indiscriminately trust people, but it's hard."_

_No child should be taught to fear strangers at such a young age. You fervently hope that by the time Gemma has grown up, Kira will be behind bars and she won't be forced into the same horrible, exhausting, soul-sapping detective work as her parents. _

"_She can call me whatever she wants," you mumble, patting the top of her head. _

_Halle is standing a few feet behind you, sunglasses in place, gun in her pocket, radio in her hand. As competent as ever._

"_It's been a while," Jasmine says to her, warmly. Jasmine is wearing an orange sundress, and carrying a basket of vegetables. Probably freshly-picked. Probably home-grown. Jasmine is wonderful and perfect and wholesome like that, after all._

_You still fucking hate her._

"_I miss our conversations," Halle says briskly, "but I'm working today. Please act like I'm not here. It will be easiest for everyone."_

_You're not sure why L goes to all this trouble to keep you happy. Maybe he thinks that if you get too upset, you'd go running to Kira with his name and Near's name and the details of all the staff on the Kira case._

_But you wouldn't. You never would. You'd never do anything to hurt this family. _

_You hope._

_You're not exactly fucking reliable, though. Sometimes you do things and you have no idea why you did them. _

_And sooner or later, you're going to mess up and lose all of this, too. _

"_Sure," Jasmine replies, and turns back to you. "Matt's cooking dinner. Or…possibly burning dinner, actually. Would you like to come inside?"_

"_Of course," you tell her, honestly. You always want to be where Matt is, even if he doesn't care. Even if he marries a thousand Jasmines, you'll still be there, waiting, just in case he needs you._

_He never needs you. Nobody needs you. You're useless._

_Gemma is still clinging to your legs._

"_Why are you fat?" she asks, curiously._

"_Why are you short?" you retort, because she's a child and you're not allowed to swear at her._

_Gemma grins._

"_You are my favourite!" she declares, and takes your hand._

_It's like the best compliment in the universe._

* * *

They get news of another kidnapping, this time in Cardiff. Katie Hardie, nine-and-a-half months old. So far, every victim has been under two years of age. They're taking _babies_, the sick bastards.

"That's twelve, now," L notes. "Mail, I want you to trawl all of the local foster-homes and shelters. See if they've had any children go missing."

"Right," Mail replies, unenthusiastically. "It's not likely, though, is it? I mean, all of these kids have been taken from rich-ass families."

"And yet there haven't been any ransom demands," L muses. "Please do it, anyway. And contact the local child protection authorities. See if they have any suggestions."

"Sure," Mail says, with a shrug. "Okay."

"And Raye," L continues, and then stops for a moment. "Raye Penber. You and I will go to Cardiff and speak with the Hardie family. They've agreed to let us search for evidence around their property."

"That's fine," Raye manages.

It's weird, knowing something _so important_ and not being able to discuss it. He can see now what he missed before. The way L calls him by his full name, like he has to remind himself he's not talking to _his_ Rae.

Raye wants to ask him about it. About whether he hurts, and whether he regrets anything.

Mail can attest to the truth, though. Mail is a witness. If L really wanted to, he could reverse the damage he's done in a _heartbeat_. Raye wants to tell him he should, because it's _pointless_ all of them being alone, when L doesn't have to be.

But then the Shinigami would be damaged. It's such a ridiculous fucking situation. Raye _has_ to keep this secret. No matter what.

He can't be on Rae's side any more. He made his damn decision, and he's sticking with it.

Naomi would be so proud of him.

* * *

Throughout the entire witness interview, Gwyn Hardie barely looks at them.

"Of _course_ there are people out there who don't like us," she says, condescendingly. "Zachary has many business rivals, as do all successful men. I can have the maid make you a list, if you'd like."

"That would be helpful," L tells her, reaching for his own tea. It tastes insipid and bland. He only managed to add four sugars before the sugar-pot was snatched away from him.

"What of their character?" Raye asks. "Do any of your husbands' rivals stand out as being the sort of person who might attempt this level of sabotage?"

Gwyn neatly cuts the crusts from her sandwich.

"It's _your_ job to figure that out, right?" she says, simply.

"What about Mr Vayn?" Daniela Spoon asks, wringing the hem of her dress between her hands. "He's always _hated_ children. And your family. It would be just like him to hire thugs to break into…"

She trails off in the face of Gwyn's fierce glower.

"I'm sorry. It wasn't my place to speak," she says, carefully, and turns to Raye. "Please, Mr Brown, please do everything you can to find little Katie. She's such a sweet, sweet baby, and I can't _stand_ the thought of anything happening to her."

"Everyone is upset," Gwyn snaps. "If you are going to be hysterical, please go upstairs until you calm down."

Daniela is – _was _– the live-in nanny. Nineteen years old, new to the country, apparently excellent with children of all ages. She was home the night that Katie was abducted. Gwyn and Zachary were both out attending a business function.

The kidnapper broke in through the front door. Inexpertly. They bashed the lock with a blunt object, didn't bother trying to disarm the alarm system, ran to the nursery, seized the child, and left again.

_They've probably attempted to break into other houses and failed_, L muses. _Of course, those incidents were never reported as kidnappings because people probably assumed they were intending to commit robbery instead. _

So the perpetrator is fast, but not particularly skilled. And so far, all crimes have occurred either within Wales itself, or close to the border.

But that's not the most interesting thing.

"I'm fine!" Daniela insists, tearfully, more to Raye than anyone else.

Raye is handsome and charming. People trust him. People respect him. People _want_ to talk to him. He's very useful during cases like this one.

L will always look more or less like a socially-inept waif. No disguise can hide that. Come to think of it, if someone really _wanted_ to track him and didn't allow themselves to be distracted by appearances, they could probable profile him and corner him.

Maybe Buzz will do that. Maybe Buzz will try to steal his identity.

Or maybe Light will use it to defeat him in the end. Light knows what he's like. Light _lived_ with him, in the same fucking _room_, and L will never be safe from him.

"We all love Katie very much, Mr Brown," Daniela continues. "If there's anything I can do to help – anything at _all_ – please, just let me know."

Gwyn calmly selects another sandwich from the plate, and delicately pops it into her mouth.

* * *

"So, now we know the motive," L comments, once they get back to the car.

"Yeah," Raye agrees. "I think it might be an inside job."

L raises an eyebrow at him.

"You think Gwyn and Zachary Hardie would have damaged their _own _property? To what intent and purpose?"

"If they did it? It's got to be publicity," Raye tells him.

In his mind, it makes perfect sense. Rich people always want to be famous. Fame boosts wealth. A short stint in the public eye, and they'll be able to make a lot of extra, investable cash from talk-shows and articles in trashy-magazines.

"And if it's not them," he adds, "then it's the nanny. Nobody cares _that_ much about someone else's kid."

L stares at him.

"I cared about Grace," he says, his voice absolutely emotionless, and Raye flinches.

"Of course you did," he mutters. He's still not reconciled with the concept of L being such a _good person_. Geeze. "I did too. But the way Daniela was crying all over me, it was like she had something to prove."

"She seemed to be genuinely upset," L counters. "And besides, we _know_ there is a serial kidnapper operating in the area. Why would you presume this case is unrelated?"

Raye sighs. Moral or not, L is still an enormous fucking dick about everything.

"Fine. What motive are _you_ talking about, then?"

"The nanny," L says, infuriatingly.

"But you just said that-"

"So far, all of the victims' families had either a nanny, a live-in tutor, or some other sort of long-term babysitter," L elucidates. "I think our kidnapper is targeting children who are primarily raised by a person other than their parents."

"Maybe," Raye says, reluctantly. "But that still doesn't tell us much. Do they hate rich people? Childcare workers? Undisciplined children?"

"After seeing the Hardies, I think we can be reasonably sure they're going after parents who don't care about their children," L says, thoughtfully. "It's not something I'd considered before. Can you please find me the police-interview transcripts from the other eleven cases?"

Raye sighs and drags his computer into his lap. L could at least _pretend_ to care about his opinion, sometimes. There's only three of them now. It's not like they have any sort of proper hierarchy.

But it's nice, in a way. It's nice that L _hasn't changed_. That he's the same reasonably good-hearted arrogant genius prick that Naomi worked with, that Naomi _looked up to_. Because if L hasn't changed and Mail hasn't changed, then maybe one day Raye can go back to being completely normal, too.

* * *

They get back to base, and Mail is still working, and Raye and L sort through the rest of the police reports and share the last of Raye's Syrupy Fruity Honey Puffs.

"You have excellent taste in cereals," L informs him, cheerfully.

"I know," Raye replies.

The evidence is starting to pile up. The transcripts indicate that six of the eleven families demonstrated 'lower than usual' interest in their child. It's definitely a trend.

_So what are you doing with these children, then? _L wonders. _Killing them? Finding better homes? Raising them yourself?_

A motive isn't enough. They still have no kidnapper, and no suspects. No fingerprints or skin cells or _anything. _The perpetrator is clearly knowledgeable enough to wear gloves and cover their hair and skin, even if they aren't capable of disabling an alarm system.

"It could be a group of people," L muses, out loud. "If they're keeping all these children for themselves, they definitely aren't working alone."

"Right," Raye agrees, chewing on his lip. "God, I hope those kids are okay. I hope this bastard doesn't get the chance to kidnap anyone else."

All they have is the single footprint. A cheap type of sneaker-shoe that is sold in half a dozen different retail stores around Wales. Barely useful at _all_.

But stopping criminals is what L _does_. What he _has_ to do. What started with his mother and escalated with Beyond Birthday and climaxed disastrously in the Kira case and extended beyond death, into the second world. This is what he does. And now, he's doing it with Mail _and_ Raye.

"We won't let them kidnap anyone else," he says, with certainty.

It's not as good as working with Rae, but it's something.

* * *

At nine-thirty, Mail kicks the back of L's chair.

"So, there's this privately-owned adoption company who have pictures of some baby that looks an awful lot like Katie Hardie. And, you know, other pictures that resemble the other kidnapped kids."

L immediately gets to his feet, and practically drapes himself over Mail's shoulder, peering at the computer screen.

A few years ago, L would have never been so emotionally invested in such a small-scale case. He's lacking in self-confidence, now, desperate to prove himself however he can. He's been dragged so low, by Kira, by the second world, by Rae, by everything. Mail feels bad for him.

L deserves better. Just like Mello.

"That is almost definitely Katie," L says, voice low and intense. "We'd need facial recognition software to be certain, of course."

"And look," Mail continues. "There's this little introduction on the main page that's filled with…well…"

Crap. Crap about how _sad_ it is when babies aren't _wanted_ and how this organization is _dedicated_ to finding only _supportive, loving homes._

Oh, check that. _Supportive, loving, heteronormative, two-parent homes._

Fuck that shit. Mail's parents left him on a fucking _hill_, and nobody batted an eyelid. Now people are forcibly rehoming kids because their parents are a little bit distracted and busy.

"Mail," L says, his ribs digging into Mail's shoulder. "Can you find me the real-life location of the site administrator?"

"Yeah," Mail says, slowly. "It might take a few hours, but I think I can do that."

"Excellent," L replies, sounding positively _cheerful_, and goes back to his chair.

* * *

Raye wakes up and Naomi is still dead. He's halfway through boiling the kettle when L calls him, and tells him they've identified the kidnappers. An entire _organization_, occupying a modified day-care center. All of the victims are presumed to be still alive.

"We're sending the local police to handle it," L continues. "No need for us to get involved. Thank you for your help with this case."

Raye doesn't answer for a moment. The kids are. The kids are all safe. The kids will all be reunited with….with their vaguely-invested parents. It's still not perfect. Nobody has the right to judge other people the way Kira did, the way these kidnappers did, but _damn_, he wishes more people appreciated their families.

People should appreciate what they _have_, before…

Before it's too late.

Raye will probably never be a parent. He'll never have that joy in his life.

"Amy," he says, suddenly.

"What?" L asks, sounding momentarily confused.

"Amy," he repeats. "That was the name we'd picked out. That Naomi and I had picked out. Amy for a girl, and Connor for a boy."

"Those are good names," L tells him, sympathetically. "I am sorry for your loss."

Raye wonders how he got L so wrong, how he was so easily misled by Rae's words. L is a jerk, but he's not heartless. He's not a _monster_.

"It was your loss, too," Raye says, soberly.

* * *

The next few weeks are relatively quiet. L takes on a handful of smaller cases, and Raye alternates between helping him, sparring with Watari, and brushing up on a few obscure foreign languages.

He has no idea how he's going to explain his current situation to the Shinigami. He needs a plausible, reasonable lie. Ideally, one that isn't going to further frighten it, or convince it that L is manipulating people in order to hurt it.

It would be easy, of course, to tell Rae the truth. Easy for Raye. Probably easy for Mail, too. Then there would be no more lies, no more animosity, no more division of workload.

But Rae…Rae would be hurt. Permanently hurt. It might even die. Raye wonders what sort of sad, sad existence it must lead, to have to choose between being permanently debilitated and never being loved at all.

Can he use the same lie he used on L, that he needs to work amongst the living? That he's reached some indefinable level of recovery, and this is the inevitable progression of his career?

If he says that, Rae will try to change his mind. It will remind him of all the reasons – all the _false_ reasons – that L is evil. And he will have no comebacks. He will have to ignore it, be thought a fool, or make an enemy of it himself.

And that's not really fair either. The Shinigami is stuck with them, all alone, without support from any of its own kind. Raye doesn't want to isolate it further.

So, what can he say? Does he need to pretend to have fallen for Mail? To have fallen for _L_? Would _that_ work? Can he profess that he loves case-solving more than anything else, that he couldn't bear to stop? Maybe then he could return to Rae's service when it comes back, and swear his allegiance to L was only temporary.

But it will still be mistrustful of him. And whatever lie he chooses, he needs to be strong enough to stick with it. He needs to be _strong_, for everyone's sake. Strong like Naomi was. Strong like Raye _isn't_.

A month passes, and Raye still doesn't know what he needs to do, and Rae still doesn't come back.

* * *

L's next case is a substantial one. A big-scale heirloom thief operating in the United States. They've already lifted several priceless artifacts from several different museums and storage facilities, and they always manage to disappear from the scene of crime without leaving a scrap of evidence.

It's a big job. A huge job. L is grateful for it.

* * *

Occasionally, L catches himself daydreaming. Catches himself imagining a world where Rae is undamaged by him, where the two of them can exist as partners forever, fight crime forever. Be together forever.

He wants. He wants _so much_, sometimes. He wants, but he can't have. He's burned his bridges, and he's proud of that.

He's chosen to be a good man rather than a happy man, and he is proud of that, too.

The new case is all-consuming. Even Raye is regularly missing sleep just to help sort through the data. L regards the sheaf of paper in his hand. It's a list of all personnel present around the time the items were stolen. One name draws his eye, just for a second. A security guard who saw nothing and heard nothing, even as a multimillion dollar pendant was snatched from just three feet behind her.

Her name is Yu. _Kira_ Yu.

And L knows. He knows it's a legitimate name, especially in English-speaking societies. It's not a big deal. It _means_ nothing. And still he feels like Light left that name there, just for him. A warning. The first nail in the second coffin.

_Here I am_.

Takada came back, and there's no reason in the world to presume that Light won't. L will work hard and do all he can and save as many people as he can, but one day, Light will step out of the shadows and systematically destroy him.

If Rae supports Light, it will be easy. Light will know, through his own malevolent powers of observation, that L is in love with Rae. And Light will use that knowledge to torment him and break him and ultimately destroy him.

But not manipulate him. Never manipulate him. L will be a thorn in Light's side until the day he dies. He'll be the spanner in Light's perfect works, and maybe that will be enough. Maybe that will inspire somebody younger and stronger to overpower and outsmart Light, just like it did in the first world.

L hopes so. But he can't hope for much for himself. All he can do is be the very best detective he can be, and patiently wait for the world to come crashing down on his head.

_Besides_, L thinks, glancing around the room, _things are a little different, now_. He has Mail, and he has Raye. And that's two people in the world who are on his side, and _not_ on Light's.

That's two more people than last time.

* * *

"Could this possibly be an inside job?" Raye asks, curiously.

"We have no reason to rule that out," L tells him. "Why?"

"It's just…I've noticed that several of the security guards – at several different locations – seem to be have a history of attending the New Washington College," Raye replies. "And now they're all working in different museums. It's a bit suspicious, right?"

L smiles at him, liquid and slow and _human_, and Raye can't help but smile back.

"Yes," L says. "That is distinctly suspicious. Well done. Now we need to find out if there's any record of these people socializing together. Can you please get me all available phone and internet records?"

"Yeah, no problem."

"Fuck!" Mail says, from the other end of the office. Raye turns his head.

"Is something wrong?" L asks.

"Is this case publically known?" Mail asks.

"Of course," Raye answers. An ordinary person would _know_ that. It's been all over the news for the past few nights. National heirlooms are a big deal.

Wait. Does this mean that Raye is ordinary, now?

"Right," Mail says, businesslike. "Any information you might need from online files, get it as quickly as you can. The data-deleting hacker is back."

"Huh," L says, thumbing his lip. "Interesting."

* * *

Not only did several of the guards go to the same university, they were also part of the same co-ed fraternity. The same co-ed fraternity who just happened to all have keys to one particular high-security storage facility in Michigan.

L orders the various state police institutions to recall and detain as many of the security guard witnesses-cum-suspects as possible. Many of them will have already fled the country, or stolen new identities. It's a messy case, inelegant, not ideal.

L and Raye fly out to Michigan, and crack open the storage container. All of the artifacts are there.

"But why?" Raye says, carefully picking up a Ming-dynasty vase. "What was the point of all of this?"

"I don't know," L tells him, quietly.

But they have conclusive evidence, and they have suspects, and even without a motive, that's enough. Things progress quickly after that. Yu confesses in the middle of her second police interview. Some of her counterparts are caught and arrested, and others are never found. The stolen goods are returned to their various museums.

When asked why, all of the thieves give only one reason: _because we could._

It's a frustrating week; the data hacker wipes three prominent United Kingdom news websites, Mail doesn't get any closer to uncovering his identity, and the local store is out of Syrupy Fruity Honey Puffs.

And the five years is almost up. Three-and-a-half weeks to go.

L still hasn't used the notebook.

* * *

Inevitably, Buzz phones the very next day. L takes the call without leaving the office. There is no reason for him to keep this a secret. Mail and Raye are the only team he has left, and he'd rather they know about Buzz, just in case.

Just in case Buzz turns out to be Light.

"Patch him through," he tells the Grint Street receptionist. Then he turns to the others. "This is the detective who has been corresponding with me recently," he explains. "I do not know if he can be trusted, but I can tell you that he is definitely operating in competition with us."

"Got it," Raye replies.

Mail doesn't say anything at all, just keeps typing at his computer. Which is fine. L is used to being ignored by Mail.

"You did a good job with the artifact thief," Buzz purrs, his voice as filtered and condescending as ever. "Congratulations. I'm impressed."

"That wasn't me," L deadpans. "You seem to be consistently confusing me for the detective L. I'm starting to think you're not particularly intelligent at all, Buzz."

"My apologies," Buzz says, promptly. "Although any other detective would take such a mistake as a compliment."

"Your compliments are exasperating," L informs him. "And also, you're-"

"His name is _Buzz_?"

Mail has abandoned his computer, and at some point gotten to his feet. L regards him with confusion.

"One moment," he says, and covers the phone. "Mail? Does the name mean something to you?"

Mail never worked with any detectives before he died. It's unlikely that he ever knew Buzz in a professional capacity. If he has personal information on Buzz, that could be very useful.

"Give me the phone," Mail grits.

L considers this.

"You must promise me you'll be careful," he cautions. "We cannot let any informat-"

Mail leans over and snatches the phone from his fingers, without waiting for L to finish.

"What the fuck happened?" he snarls.

Thinking quickly, L reaches for the phone cradle, and puts the call on speakerphone.

"Who is this?" Buzz asks, sounding mildly perplexed.

"How did you die?" Mail asks, unhelpfully. "You weren't supposed to fuckin' die."

"Who is this?" Buzz repeats. "And why do you think you know me?"

"No," Mail says, sounding almost hysterical. "No, the question is, why are _you_ using this handle? What happened to your old identity?"

There is silence from the other end of the phone.

"The only person who knew that about me," Buzz pronounces slowly, "wouldn't be capable of making a phone call right now. Which means you must be…Matt."

Mail tenses.

_Don't confirm that_, L thinks. _Don't confirm that, whatever you do. Please_.

"Near," Mail returns, voice dripping with disgust. "Fuck. You."

L freezes in place.

Near.

_Near._

Not Light. Near.

* * *

That name means something. Yes, Raye remembers now. Near was the man who finally brought down Kira.

"It's not Near any more," Near replies, courteously. "My new name is Buzz. My old identity was earned and seized by another detective."

L leans forward in his chair, eye fixed intently on Mail and the phone. Raye can't ask any questions. He can't give anything away to this new person. There's still a chance that Near – or whoever he is – might wish L ill.

That's the one thing Raye hates about this job. Everyone is an enemy.

"He killed you?" Mail snarls. "That's pretty fuckin' careless."

"He did not kill me," Near replies. "The new Near does not kill. He values human life even more than L himself. He waits for an insane amount of evidence before he acts, and he does not partner with legal institutions that implement any sort of death penalty."

Raye takes a deep breath. This Near person…isn't Near, he's Buzz, and there's a new Near. Who hopefully isn't in the second world yet, because the last thing Raye needs is _another_ person complicating this already confusing situation.

Also, hopefully Near isn't geographically close, because then he'll be near but not Near and _who the fuck named this person, anyway?_

"So he works slowly," L clarifies, Mail glares at him, like he loathes the interruption.

"Not at all," not-Near…_Buzz_ murmurs. "He is incredible. Faster and more thorough than even myself. Although I admit I am somewhat biased towards a man who disguises himself behind a Transformers mask."

"So how did you die?" Mail presses.

"Cardiac failure," Nearbuzz confirms. "Not suspicious cardiac failure, either. My heart was never good. You ought to know that."

"Fuck," Mail says, and then hands the phone back to L. He looks ever paler than usual, like this is all too much for him.

L switches the handset volume back to regular. Whatever he's about to say is obviously secret.

"Prove your identity," he says, quietly. "Tell me my real name."

There is silence for a moment. Even Mail doesn't know L's real name. He told Raye as much, once. They've…they've talked about a lot of things, actually. If Mail were more mentally stable, Raye would probably consider him a friend.

"I think it is best that we work separately from now on," L says into the phone. "I will give you the number of a direct line to me. For now, we tell nobody of each other's identities."

"Thank fuck for that," Mail breathes.

L ends the call, and regards Mail carefully.

"You knew him from his second-preference handle?" he asks.

"We were friends, a long long time ago," Mail growls. "I'm not fuckin' proud of it, okay?"

"Okay," L says, and turns to Raye. "Did you follow everything, Raye?"

"No," Raye replies, honestly. L nods.

"There is one more person in this world who knows my identity and real name," he says, succinctly. "Other than that, nothing has changed."

"Right," Raye agrees.

It's kind of a weird day.

* * *

It's sort of a relief, knowing that Near is around. Knowing that when Light finally shows up and murders L, there will be someone to hold him responsible. Someone to stop him, again, and send him screaming back to the very depths of hell.

New-Near, though. New-Near is a mystery, and therefore potentially a danger. No matter what Near thinks, there's a chance he could be one of Kira's old supporters. He must have had some sort of vendetta against Near, to deliberately target him and claim his identity.

Although L has to admit that the not-killing-people characteristic makes new-Near _less_ likely to be one of Light's many protégés and fanatics. Perhaps he is just another brave, dedicated new detective. The sort that L had always hoped to raise, and prior to that, always hoped to _be_.

The rest of the day passes in companionable silence. Mail seems to be relatively calm, despite his earlier distress. L can imagine that hearing from Near – from Mello's unintentional tormentor and eternal rival – must have been severely unpleasant for him. And yet, Mail didn't really give anything away.

Sometimes, L is so proud of him.

L revealed himself to Near, in a roundabout way. Nobody, save Mello, Near, L's own mother, and presumably the entire population of Shinigami, knows L's real name. Buzz knew, and therefore, Buzz must be Near. The conversation was relatively safe.

And now, they must focusing on catching a data hacker. A person – or persons – who seem to delight in removing large amounts of information from news websites, the databases of newsroom computers, and government-based public information websites. Online vandals, essentially. The strange thing is, they don't seem to target or support any particular news company. L wonders if they are trying to make some sort of infantile protest against the press in general. Or against society in general.

He wonders what sort of ridiculous name Matsuda would have given them, if he were still alive. He wonders what theories Naomi would have, if she were still by his side.

"Hello, L," someone says from the door. L hesitates, schooling himself, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.

_Rae._

"Oh, you're back," he says, flippantly, without looking around. "And you sound cheerful. Does this mean you think I'm about to drop dead?"

"What are you working on?" Rae asks, ignoring the question. There's a strange, saccharine quality to its voice that L doesn't like. Maybe it actually _has_ made plans to kill him.

"The news hacker," Raye replies. "Uh. Welcome back, Rae."

"Why are you helping L?" Rae asks, and Raye flinches.

"Look," he burbles. "I know what I said, but I couldn't actually leave. I tried. But I just. I'm not ready to be on my own, yet."

"Why do you need his help, L?" Rae continues, and okay, this is definitely leading somewhere. L wishes he'd had the forethought to wear his bulletproof vest.

"Raye is still a part of _my_ team," L replies, as pettily has he can manage.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to ask Naomi to help?"

_Is that a threat_? L wonders. _Are you implying that I'll be with Naomi, soon?_

"Naomi is dead," L points out, still carefully not looking at Rae. Even though he wants to look. He wants confirmation that his Shinigami is safe.

"Is that actually a problem, though?" Rae asks. "I mean, she _did_ manage to send you a whole lot of emails that were all only created the day after she died, right?"

L does not move. He stays statue-still, his heart drumming syncopatedly at the inside of his chest.

_No_, he thinks, blindly, stupidly. _No_.

"I've just been at an intensive computer-hacking course," Rae continues, and suddenly it is right upon L, dragging him violently out of his seat, so angry, so _angry_. "What the _fuck_ is going on, L?"

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ no estimated time of next update. sorry guys.

+ I have not the spoons to reply at length to every comment and PM sitting in my inbox, but I will do the best I can starting today.

+ thank you for reading.


	56. Consequences

notes/warnings

+ please note the fic rating is now **M**.

+ warning for more or less explicit sex.

+ warning for language, bad writing, and all the usual stuff.

* * *

**Consequences**

"I have no idea what you are talking about," L replies, as calmly as possible.

L needs to find out how much Rae knows, and how much Rae has inferred. Rae might simply be testing an unfounded suspicion. L steels his expression. He cannot afford to give anything away.

_How did this happen?_

_How did this go wrong?_

L lifts his head, lets himself look Rae in the eye.

Red. Still red. Whatever happens, he must keep those eyes red.

"Really?" Rae snarls. "Maybe Mail can explain it to you? He explained it to Raye _so well_."

No. _No. _This undertaking was supposed to be watertight. The emails were believable, the evidence was destroyed, and L's every action was perfectly planned.

_What have you done, Mail? _L thinks, frantically.

Raye's sudden attitude change is beginning to make a whole lot more sense. But if Mail _said_ something, and Rae overheard it, then L needs to work out what exactly Rae knows. He needs to do damage control. This day must end with Rae hating L as much as ever. Somehow.

Rae cannot be debilitated, Rae cannot get hurt.

L doesn't flinch, and he doesn't turn to Mail. He doesn't do anything that might give Rae _proof._

"What do you think Mail said?" he asks, sounding only vaguely interested.

"That he created the emails himself," Rae hisses, accusingly. "At your instruction. Oh, and that they were made specifically because you wanted me to hate you."

_No_, L thinks, mentally scrabbling for some sort of answer, something that will make everything okay, something that will reinstate the status quo.

"Fuck," Mail mutters, essentially confirming everything, stupid stupid stupid.

"You were _listening in_," Raye yells, angrily. "I thought you'd already _left."_

"Why wouldn't I listen?" Rae demands. "Why would I trust _any_ of you, when L is trying…when I _thought_ L was trying…when…"

Mail and Raye are both looking askance at L. L ignores them both, his mind in overdrive. What can he do? What if he goes along with this for now, pretends to be nice, and then sets it up to look like part of an even greater plot to kill Rae?

Except…there's no way to do that. And if L creates more evidence, Rae is certain to investigate it thoroughly, now.

He only had one chance. He knew that at the very beginning.

There are no second chances.

"I don't know what my colleagues have been up to," he says, weakly. "But I assure you that I am definitely trying to kill you. I don't think there's any point in keeping that information a secret."

It's not going to work. He knows it's not going to work. And yet, it _can't_ not work. Rae is…his Rae, his darling Rae. Rae can't get sick again; those eyes _cannot_ go murky and brown. L has to save his Shinigami, somehow.

_Please Rae. Please believe me. You are clever. You know this is what you need to believe, even if it isn't true._

_Please, Rae. _

_Please._

"I don't believe you," Rae whispers. "This makes far too much sense. And the phone company has _records_ of you calling Mail, and instructing him. And saying that you…you…"

Fuck. No. No. L _admitted_ things in that conversation. Things that Rae was never, ever supposed to hear.

No.

"I'm sorry," Mail says, contritely. "If I had realised this thing would try to investigate, I would have deleted the evidence when you told me to."

And that's it. That's the confession Rae was waiting for, and there is nothing L can do to retract those words. Mail has…Mail has undone everything. Ruined everything.

_I should have left you to rot in a jail cell_, L thinks, viciously, so angry, _so angry_. _I should have let you die, over and over, a thousand different empty worlds._

"You," he says, quietly, furiously. "You were _supposed to…"_

He catches himself, mid-sentence. He can't. He can't do this. He can't give Rae so much as a single syllable.

_How do I fix this? How do I fix this how do I fix this?_

_I can't fix this._

_I can't not fix this._

"Get out," he orders, shaking with frustration, with fury, with defeat. "Both of you, get out. You've done enough."

"Are you kidding?" Raye snaps. "Your Shinigami is trying to _kill_ you."

"He's right," Mail says. "It's okay. We can leave."

And oh, L will never, ever be able to forgive him for what he's done. Mail might be his most precious employee, but Rae is his _charge_, his responsibility.

The love of his fucking life, and _damnit_, they were _so close_. Three more weeks, and Rae could have walked free. L wants to kill something with his bare hands. He wants to cry and cry and never stop.

Raye and Mail leave quickly, closing the door behind them.

"You lied to me," Rae says, savagely. "You…you _set this up_!"

L shakes his head.

"No," he manages. "No. I didn't. I don't know what's going on, but I didn't se-"

Rae moves quickly, throwing open the glass doors and dragging L onto the balcony. It extends one long, bony arm, dangling L over the edge like a scruffed kitten.

L gazes downwards. The street is a long way away. A dozen stories down, in fact. He'll die for certain, if Rae drops him.

"Do not," Rae growls, "_lie_ to me."

L lifts his head, slowly. Rae's eyes are still red, still red, and doesn't that mean L is in with a chance? As long as the eyes are red, there's the possibility he might say or do something to keep them that way.

_Think think think._

Rae must walk away from this in the end. No matter what, Rae must be okay.

"Answer me, you bastard!" Rae says, damningly. "Don't you _dare_ ignore me, not after…not after _everything_!"

"What do you want me to say?" L asks, miserably.

"When you spoke to Mail, you told him you did this to protect me," Rae says, suddenly sounding uncertain. "Was that true?"

L just shakes his head. He cannot answer that, not honestly. He must never answer that honestly.

_Please_, he thinks. _Please._

* * *

The world is crumbling.

The world – that was previously so secure and perfect, that made so much _sense_, finally, now, in this second life – is coming undone.

It started unraveling six weeks ago, when Rae pressed itself against the door to Mail's office and listened to all the insane, incredible things Mail had to say. And even then, Rae was convinced Mail's words would be proven to be lies.

There was just no way, after everything, that L could be trying to protect Rae. It made too much sense for L to be a monster, a demon, and evildoer, lurking in the dark. It made sense that L's affection was false, that their whole, vaguely-defined, infinitely important _relationship_ was a lie.

And then there were the emails and the phone call and Rae keeps expecting to wake up, to find that all of this is untrue. But Rae never sleeps. Its eyes and ears do not lie. Its senses are perfect, and this is real.

L is a liar. L is a liar and a fraud and those alone are sins, are crimes. Those alone are enough to make him a bad person. Rae was deceived. L _got the better_ of Rae, L almost _won_. If not for Mail and circumstances and a lot of luck, L could have won this whole stupid _war_. This war over…

…over what? Rae's health?

"Do it," L says, softly.

The world is falling. Everything is…

No. Everything is fine. L is still evil. L _manipulated_ Rae, and Rae can hate him forever. Rae never should have let this happen. Rae never should have accepted anything, without investigating for itself.

Everything is fine.

"Do what?" Rae sneers. "_Speak_, or I'll drop you."

L lifts one hand, his fingertips grazing Rae's forearm. His touch is light, ticklish and warm. Rae cannot bear it, cannot _stand_ it, after everything.

_I hated you I cared for you I hated you I hated you I hated you._

Now what? What the fuck is happening? The world isn't…the world is unstable.

No. Everything is fine. Rae has come too far, now. Everything will be fine.

"You would only threaten that if you could drop me without consequence," L infers. "So…do it. Be rid of me, if you can get away with it. I'm your only weakness. If you kill me, you will be safe."

Rae shakes its head. The world is sloughing, coming apart in great chunks. L is the enemy, always the enemy.

Such a _small_ enemy. So human. So soft. Desperately trying to defend Rae at the cost of his own fucking life.

Oh.

Hell.

Everything comes sharply into focus. L has placed Rae's life ahead of his own.

"Come on," he goads. "Rae. Rae! Just let _go_."

L has…

The world is…

Rae is spinning, madly, impossibly. Nothing is okay.

"No!" it replies, sharply, abject denial. "No. _No_."

L cares and Rae cannot escape that. All the evidence points towards it. It is a fact, ironclad, inescapable, ploughing up the universe like so much straw.

L would die, rather than hurt Rae, and that is huge. That should be every sort of victory, but Rae sustains damage instantaneously. The numbers above L's head vanish, from Rae's sight, from Rae's memory. The world is crumbling. The ground underneath Rae opens up and Rae falls and falls and falls, screaming and clawing at the air.

* * *

Nothing happens. For several long minutes, Rae does not move, does not drop L, does not say a thing. And L. L hopes. L _prays_, even, to the god of hell, to every god he can think of. He prays for Rae to survive, to be okay, to loathe him, to be _safe_, whatever it takes.

His Rae. His thing. That he has tried _so hard_ to save.

And then he stops hoping, stops praying, because Rae's eyes go brown. As brown as mud, as the coffee stain on L's well-worn shirt.

"No," L says, quietly, shaking his head in horror. "No. No. Rae. _Don't_."

_I can make you hate me. If you just give me a chance, I can make you hate me again._

_Why won't you let me save you?_

"Don't," Rae says, furiously. "After everything you've done. _Fuck_ you, you monster."

It throws him, then. It throws him with a strange little half turn, so he goes barreling back into the office and slams into the wall instead of tumbling to his death.

He should have died. He wants. He wants Rae to be okay. No price is too high as long as Rae is okay.

_This is what love feels like_.

It's why Misa was incapable of independent thought, why Rem lacked agency. This feeling is consuming, dwarfing everything. Guilt and anger and shame, because _how could he have failed at this, this most important task_.

L falls to the floor with a thud, and stays there.

"Why did you pry?" he asks, sadly. "Why couldn't you have just accepted things?"

"Why didn't you tell me what you were doing?" Rae spits.

"Because it wouldn't have _worked_," L replies. "And how am I supposed to protect you now? I cannot fool you again."

Rae is upon him in a split second, hands on his wrists, pinning them against the wall, above his head.

"You _like_ me," it says, shakily. An accusation. A question.

Rae is so close. So close, and L desperately, desperately wants to touch it. Now that he can. Now that there will be no consequences, because everything is already ruined.

He's not above this. He wants to be, but he's not.

Rae drags a finger across L's wrist, possibly accidental, possibly out of anger. L twitches.

"Of course," he says, in defeat.

Rae doesn't say anything for a moment. It seems to be thinking, trying to process, _judging_ him.

"Fuck you," it says, finally.

And in one swift movement, it lets him go and disappears through the wall, leaving L entirely alone. L curls up, puts his forehead on his knee, and folds his arms over his own head.

Everything is destroyed, and it is all his fault.

* * *

"This is my fault, isn't it?" Raye asks, sadly. "If the Shinigami hadn't manipulated me, you would never have had to say anything out loud."

"I don't see how this is your fault," Mail counters, with a little shrug. "I don't really see how this involves you at all."

Raye gives a little half-nod, unsure of how to respond. Mail is the one who didn't delete the evidence, and L is the one who concocted the lie in the first place. _Everyone_ is to blame.

"This will be better for L," he says, slowly. "Right? I mean, Rae won't hate L, so it probably won't be trying to kill him any more. But Rae will…Rae will be hurt. That's how it works, isn't it?"

"I don't care about the Shinigami," Mail says, flippantly.

Right. Mail cares about L, vaguely, and nobody else. But Raye is worried about _everyone_. Things are happening, now, and he isn't sure how everything will end. The uncertainty is almost painful.

"And you're_ sure_ Rae won't hurt L?" he asks, suddenly nervous. "That's why you said it was okay for us to leave, right?"

"L told us to leave," Mail deadpans. "Besides, what could we possibly do against a god of fuckin' _death_?"

Raye chews on his lower lip.

"That's actually not very reassuring," he says, morbidly.

His life was a lot easier before the Kira case. Before he knew about monsters and skeletons and other worlds. Back when everything could be killed with a trusty gun and a sure aim.

Mail turns back to his computer, a signal that the conversation is over. Still so self-centered, even when everything is falling apart. And the worst thing is; he's right. There isn't anything they can do. Rae could drop dead right in front of them. Rae could murder L right in front of them. And they'd be forced to stand and watch, like idiots, like animals.

Raye is really sick and tired of this stupid second world.

Ten minutes later, L comes storming into the room, letting the door slam behind him. Raye has never seen him look so angry.

Or so exhausted. Raye is pretty certain that he's developing bags under the bags under his eyes, and that shouldn't be physically _possible_.

"Mail," L says, vehemently.

Mail doesn't react straight away, and L grabs the back of his chair and turns it, violently, so that Mail is forced to face him.

"L," Mail monotones.

L clutches at the air, impossibly frustrated.

"What did you do that for?" he demands. "You didn't have to apologise, not then and there, and certain _not in front of Rae_!"

Hearing L yell is one of the most disconcerting things in the world. His appearance is always so sleepy and soft. He looks like he shouldn't be _capable_ of making such a loud noise.

Mail rolls his eyes.

"The plan was already fuckin' ruined," he says, irritably. "Rae knew everything before it even entered the room."

"Had you not confirmed it, I might have still had a chance," L argues loudly, slamming his hand against the desk.

Mail stares at him.

"You're actually trying to fuckin' blame this on me, aren't you?" he says, in disbelief.

"It is _your _fault!"

"It is not my fault," Mail counters. "It was a long shot, and it failed."

And it's really fucking creepy, the way their roles have been reversed. The way Mail is talking like a reasonable adult and L is screaming and damn near out of his mind.

"You didn't do as you were told!" L hisses. "You deliberately ignored my orders!"

"I agreed to help you with a plan that might endanger your life and chose to put aside an insurance policy," Mail tells him.

His words seem to sap L's strength, because L suddenly sags, like he's been hit in the stomach.

"Why?" he asks, desperately.

"Are you seriously asking him why he cares more for you than he does the skeleton?" Raye asks.

_Snap out of it, L. You can't go crazy._

_This whole situation is already crazy enough as it is._

"What if Rae dies?" L asks, swiping a hand over his face. "What if it is reduced to nothing?"

"Then you did the best you could," Mail tells him, dismissively. "If you're going to cry, go somewhere else. I'm still trying to catch a hacker, and I don't have any sympathy for you."

"You don't have to be such a fucking asshole," Raye snaps. L looks like he might break in half at any moment.

"Rae is here and Rae is alive and Rae could be with you right now," Mail says, still addressing L. "And yet you're in here, fuckin' shouting at me. Why should I feel sympathy for you?"

Adult or not, Mail is still as single-minded as ever. Rae isn't L's version of Mello. Rae isn't even human, and Mail shouldn't be drawing parallels between the two of them.

L shakes his head, violently.

"No," he says, sharply. "No. How _dare_ you. No!"

"Will the debilitation thing really kill Rae in three weeks?" Raye wonders out loud, trying to diffuse the situation. "I mean, after that it will leave you, right? There's a chance it might not really be harmed at all."

"I don't _know_," L shouts at him, and that's the bottom line, isn't it? That's why L is scared. "I don't know what will happen."

A year ago, Raye would have agreed. Things that were unknown and things that were unpredictable; those were the most frightening things in his world.

But then, he lost Naomi. And realized that real things, finite things, known things can be the worst of all.

In the absence of absolute knowledge, there is hope. L ought to know that.

"I don't believe you can lie to the Shinigami again," Raye says, reasonably. "And I don't see any value in getting angry at Mail."

He doesn't need the two of them getting into a fistfight, on top of everything else.

L looks anguished. He hesitates halfway between Raye and Mail's chair, like he's still contemplating pursuing the argument with Mail.

Only it's not an argument. It's just L, venting, like he has no idea what to do with himself. In a way, Raye can sympathise with Mail. Rae isn't dead, may never be dead. As far as Raye can see, what's happened is far from terrible.

"I think you should go," he says, in the most authoritative voice he can muster. "Try and come up with another way to help Rae, if you can. But also, I think you should get some sleep."

L looks filthy, and exhausted. His skin is unusually sallow, even for him. And his white shirt is horribly stretched, and stained brown in several places.

Raye wonders what the Shinigami said to him. He wonders if they'll be able to work together again. If they might become friends.

"Or you could work," Mail pipes up, unhelpfully. "I'm pretty close to pinpointing the internet service provider for this hacker."

Not saving Rae shouldn't be such a huge, important deal. It shouldn't matter to L the way Grace mattered and Matsuda mattered and Naomi mattered. It's just a monster, at the end of the day. It's not even the same species as him, and Raye wonders how L managed to get so attached to it.

"Shut _up_," L says, his voice cracking loudly over the last syllable. "I can't. I've only got twenty-one days. I _can't_."

He pushes one hand over his eye, broken and pathetic. And Raye wants to help his boss – really, he does – but he has absolutely no idea what to do.

* * *

"That's the fourth murder this month," Matthews reports, unnecessarily. "The Chief Executive of GroupCo Limited. If this keeps up, the entire stock market is going to crumble."

Detective Inspector Charlotte King swats at him, irritably. She knows, damnit. She's been chasing the CEO-killer for weeks. She _knows_.

"Thank you for pointing that out," she replies, icily polite. "Do you have any recommendations on how I might catch this murderer?"

Matthews blanches.

"He doesn't leave any evidence," he points out, backing away and holding up his hands. He's useless, really. He should never have made it to the rank of Deputy. Nepotism. The Chief is his uncle. Charlotte tries to have as little to do with him as possible.

"Everyone leaves evidence," she says, determinedly. "Sooner or later, he'll make a mistake."

Later isn't good enough, though. People are being killed. People are panicking. Matthews might be worried about the well-to-do stockholders, but Charlotte is worried about _everyone_.

This whole city. This is her city. She's already died for it once.

"We need to call in L," Matthews tells her. "Chief's orders."

Charlotte rolls her eyes. She's prepared for this, too. She's asked around, looked at figures, done her research.

"Negative," she replies, bringing up a neat little graph on her computer screen. Matthews likes graphs. "Look here. In the past month, L has solved fifteen internationally-recognised cases. But this detective – Buzz – has solved twenty-seven."

"You make a convincing argument," Matthews says, nervously. "But the Chief is pretty attached to L."

"L is clearly on the decline," Charlotte replies, neatly hitting print. "Take this to your uncle. Tell him that Buzz is the way to go."

She can't take a risk on a tired old detective. This is her city, and she needs the best there is.

* * *

Eventually, L leaves. He leaves when he grows sick of being ignored, of Raye's half-hearted attempts to start conversation. He hates both of his teammates, right now. He hates them for not caring enough, for not taking this seriously, for not _valuing Rae _the way he does. And he knows that such thought patterns are irrational, unfair, and destructive.

But he doesn't care. His Shinigami. _His Shinigami_.

L wanders out into the hall, aimless and pointless and desperate to do _something_. He feels an awful, directionless sense of urgency. Like there's something that he desperately needs to _do_ – and then maybe he'll be able to breathe again and think again and plan how to restore Rae, somehow, again – but the nature of the thing evades him. He feels both wired and disconnected, a bundle of guilt and sadness and loss and desperate rage.

Rae was his charge. Rae was someone he was desperate to protect; and up until recently, confident that he could save. He came so close, _so close_, three weeks, so goddamn close. And worse. This is worse than anyone else he's ever lost, because even in the beginning, even before they were friends, even back when Rae was his personal tormentor and enemy, Rae was always a constant in L's life. Constantly present, constantly the same.

Rae should never have started to change. Should never have been put in danger. And now they're almost out of time, and L still has no idea what the change means, or whether Rae is a person in hell, or what he's supposed to do. He has no leads, and no way of finding out.

No, wait. Near. Near indicated that he was suspicious of the hell god, too.

But L has no way of contacting Near. Near didn't leave him a number. And even if L could contact him, what good would that do? Near would expressly refuse to help a Shinigami. He's not capable of compassion, and he's unlikely to listen to reason.

Mello would help, if he were here. Mello would understand what it means to love a Shinigami, even if he himself could not empathise.

Near doesn't understand love at all.

And that is the only thing left. The only card he holds to his chest. Rae does not know exactly how L feels. Not quite.

_I love you._

_Why did you have to do this?_

L picks his way down the hall. It's getting dark outside. He wonders if he can sleep off this horrible, destructive feeling.

None of this is Rae's fault. L miscalculated. He underestimated Rae and he trusted Mail. He should have done things differently.

Someone he loves will suffer because he should have done things differently. How many times has this scenario repeated itself, now? Should have told Mello he was the favourite. Should have left Matsuda handcuffed to the desk. Should have found Grace sooner. Should have never believed Takada had changed.

So many people. So many mistakes.

Only Rae is different from the others. Rae can never come back. It will not go to hell. It will not go to some other world. It will vanish, from the universe, from L's life.

If Rae vanishes, L wants to vanish with it. L wants, god, L wants everything. He wants to lay down his life to make this right. He wants to carry Rae's death note forever. He wants them to be _one_, somehow, no matter what it costs him.

Being in love is terrifying.

And this is so bad. L is toxic to Rae. Maybe he's even the boy from Rae's nightmares. Maybe Rae has foreseen its own end.

_No._

_No!_

If Rae is destined to perish, then L will change that destiny. Somehow. He'll stay with Rae, every second of every day. He'll fight the hell-god if she comes. He'll do whatever it takes.

He loves Rae more than Mello. More than Mail and Matsuda and Naomi. Maybe more than all of them put together. He never knew he was capable of so much selfless, illogical emotion.

Maybe that's enough.

But if love were enough to save someone, then Mello never would have gone to hell.

There are no answers. L can think and hope and reason and despair and never come up with a solution. He's just going around in circles.

Someone shoves him facefirst into the wall, puts pressure on his back and pins him there.

"Rae," L chokes.

"Fuck you," Rae hisses.

L tries to think of something to say. Something neutral, something that won't belie or restrict any possible future plans to make Rae hate him.

He can't think. He feels too big for his skin. He feels like he's back in that observation vehicle, with Rae all over him, holding him down. But he can't think about that. He can't enjoy the sensation. He's too busy hating himself.

Rae doesn't speak. They stay like that for over a minute, and then it releases him and disappears without another word.

L gives up. He goes to his room, locks the door, and pulls the covers over his head.

Rae deserves a better detective than him. A better partner than him. Everything that L wants to be, Rae deserves better.

Maybe Rae will see reason, and choose someone else. Maybe Rae will stop caring for him on its own, in time.

L falls into a deep, dreamless sleep, still clinging to that thought.

* * *

Rae is shaken, held under the sway of a thousand different emotions.

_Anger/denial/relief/shock/fury/hatred/want_.

Everything used to be so easy. Should have been so easy. Especially now, when things are like this. In this body. In this thing that is called Rae, that is new and not old. In this thing that is completely capable of ruling the world.

Winning should have been easy.

But the world is spinning. Dissolving. Coming apart in great chunks. Rae feels as if its mind has been torn in two, divided and cast asunder, exposing all the little, barely-existent, inconvenient feelings that Rae has never needed, never had a use for, never been _capable_ of.

_L held down, shirt almost see-through, the curve of his back._

This is how it feels to go mad.

Rae glances at the clock. It's after eleven. Two floors up and one room to the left, L will be sleeping. Rae knows he'll be sleeping, because Rae knows his schedule, knows the hangdog look he gets when he's exhausted, knows the holes in his jeans and exactly how much dirt is under every fingernail.

Rae has spent half its life following L, cataloguing L. This isn't a new thing. It's a new development of an old thing. An impossible new development, the way a motor vehicle might suddenly sprout a forked tongue. Infuriating. L should never have crept out of his box. He should never have changed. He should have stayed the same, arrogant, evil, dislikeable asshole that he always was.

That he tried so hard to pretend to be, for Rae.

Rae's thoughts are treacherous. Every so often they turn saccharine and gentle, delivered like a punch to the gut, a kick to the face. Rae wants to stop. Rae cannot stop. It keeps playing, over and over, like an ancient record.

_L is._

_L is._

_L is._

_Defies categorization._

_L is._

_I did it._

_L is._

_No, no, no! It wasn't me!_

_L is…sleeping._

_IT WASN'T MY FAULT!_

It doesn't matter, does it? The past is irrelevant. Rae is Rae. It can almost hear L breathing from here. Slow and regular and unconscious. Vulnerable.

Rae should kill him. Rae should…defend…

L lied. L lied and struggled and suffered and did everything he could to guard Rae from what he believed to be a terrible fate. But Rae is fine. This is fine. This blindness, this debilitation. This is nothing.

This is nothing, because.

L still has to use the notebook. It's laughable, how he hasn't even figured out _why_. There's barely anyone left that he cares about, it shouldn't be that fucking difficult.

_Maybe he was too busy trying to protect me?_

Another example of L being utterly wrong. Rae will win and Rae will be king and Rae will have _everything_. Perfect, perfect, beautiful world. Rae will have everything, because it deserves everything.

_L is part of everything_, Rae realizes, with a not-entirely-unpleasant lurch. The consequences of today stretch on forever, annulling all that darkness. Annulling all those days where Rae felt betrayed and degraded and alone. All those days when Rae was furious. This isn't about beating L. This is about winning L, which is so much better, because it lasts forever.

Rae's condition is irrelevant, because Rae can be king _and_ claim the thumb-sucking, doll-eyed human trophy.

The world is starting to come together, remade, anew. Different. Prettier. Shining. No matter how Rae feels, Rae is safe, because L loves to the point of infatuation. To the point of obliterating his own self defence, his own will to live. He's like Misa. Like Rem.

So it's okay. It's okay that Rae feels different. Softer. Slightly less whole. It's okay, because this is still a competition and L fell first, and Rae can use him to cushion the fall. It's okay, because L has already been won, and Rae doesn't have to sacrifice a thing.

Wow.

This is _so good_. This is better than good. This is being dealt a handful of aces. This is everything, exactly as it should be, better than Rae could possibly have envisaged.

Winning _will_ be easy.

Rae is winning.

* * *

When L wakes up, the sun is still low in the sky. The room is cool.

_I want cereal for breakfast_, he thinks, muzzily. _Something made from corn. With sugar. And honey. And maple syrup._

For a few seconds, he thinks only of that, shifting slowly under the covers, his mind pleasantly blank. And then he remembers. Rae knows. Rae _knows_. His plan has failed and everything is ruined.

All he wanted was for Rae to be safe.

L can never have the things he wants.

Well. It's not as if he doesn't _desire_ a world where Rae doesn't hate him. It's not as if he's adverse to Rae looking at him without loathing, to maybe being able to talk to Rae again, to solve _cases_ together, oh god.

It's not as if he's adverse to Rae shoving him up against walls.

In the absence of being able to protect Rae, he might as well…

No. No, no, no. He can't. He can't be complacent. He can't give up. He has to stop Rae from getting any more attached to him. He has to minimize the damage, and he has to devote every free moment in his _life_ to trying to find a way to make Rae hate him again.

He can't give up. Rae is worth too much.

This thing that tormented him and blamed him and hated him and cared for him and still, even now, supports Light over him. This thing is worth too much.

L swipes the hair out of his eye. He still feels awkward; antsy and tense. Wound too tight, waiting to snap. He should get up. He should go for a run, maybe. Or immerse himself in the hacker case. Or pick a fight with _Mail_, because god knows L isn't done with him yet.

_I did everything for you, and this is how you repay me?_

He wants to go and talk to Rae, and gauge just how furious Rae is right now. His stomach goes strange and fluttery at the mere thought of it, like he's some socially-normal thirteen-year-old with a crush. And, if he's honest with himself, he wants to see those brown eyes again, just once. He wants…more.

L's hand spasms involuntarily, making the sheet pucker under his fingers.

And okay. He could try _that_. He needs to try something, after all. He can't even think straight, the way he is, now.

L reaches down, fingers ghosting over his abdomen, sliding beneath the elastic of his underwear. He's done this maybe twice before in his entire life. He's never had _needs_. When he was younger, his lack of sex drive was just one more facet of being an emotionally-deficient, super-rational sleuth. Just another unnecessary thing he'd discarded, like regular bathing, and shoes.

And friends.

He always used to be desensitized. Numb to the touch. Apathetic to affection. He used to consider himself more evolved than other humans, because he'd risen above any need for basic, animalistic comfort.

Then he met Rae.

He wants Rae's hands on him, all the time. He wants Rae's fingers. He wants.

L shakes his head, hard. He can't let himself get carried away. This is a purely mechanical venture. He needs to get this done quickly so that he can devote himself to planning ways to restore Rae.

_Faster._

He doesn't particularly like the feeling of skin on skin. It's sort of disgusting, his hand is going to get dirty, and he hates anything that requires him to use a fist. Especially like this, over and over.

And over.

He hates this tenseness, building up under his skin, static electricity. He doesn't normally do this, but he needs to hurry anyway. He's bored here, not quite able to think straight, his brain just slightly more stupid than it was before he started.

This had better work.

But that's the story of his life, recently. Desperately flailing for answers, forced to employ dubious methods that are likely to end up nothing more than a waste of time. He's past his used-by-date, sad old detective with his hand in his pants.

"Mail wants to speak to you," Rae announces irritably, walking unannounced through the wall. "You need to…what are you doing?"

L rolls his eye, but doesn't stop. He's almost done. He thinks he's almost done, anyway. He's not actually very good at this.

"What _are_ you doing?" Rae asks again, this time sounding genuinely curious. It occurs to L that maybe he ought to be ashamed. He's technically covered calf-to-chin by the blankets, but his actions must be fairly obvious. Rae's eyes are the colour of dark chocolate. L meets them and never wants to look away.

He could stop, but he's aiming to be an asshole. 'Masturbating-is-more-important-than-talking-to-you' seems to be a fairly legitimate strategy to make Rae hate him again. It seems like the sort of egotistical, hedonistic, self-centered attitude that Light might have had, and Light is the most detestable person L knows.

He really does not want to be thinking about Light at a time like this.

Rae approaches the end of the bed, and tilts its head.

"I thought you didn't do things like this," it says, voice carefully neutral, expression carefully blank.

"Can you just go away?" L demands, but his voice sounds too-high and choked. "Come back in ten minutes."

He could stop, but he really doesn't want to, now that Rae is here.

The Shinigami closes a hand over L's left ankle, the movement slow and intense and deliberate. And then L does stop, distracted and bewildered and-

_Don't ever let me go._

"Sure, I could do that," Rae says, and its voice sounds odd, too. Like it's battling the urge to…to growl, or something. It rubs one finger up the middle of L's foot, and L feels it like ten thousand volts applied directly to his spinal nerves. "Or I could stay. I could stay and you could keep going."

L closes his eyes, briefly, trying to preserve the moment. He can't think. He can't process. If Rae stays, if Rae keeps touching him, if he...

L is burning up. He wants to keep going, but he's not sure he's actually capable of operating his own fingers and hands at this point. He's blind and tumbling. He thinks maybe he wanted this all along, maybe from that very first day that Rae appeared behind him, reflected in the mirror. Maybe it was always headed here, to this moment.

If he does this…

Rae swipes at his foot again, and L has to battle the urge to curl into a delirious little ball. His feet are sensitive, apparently, and Rae knows. Rae knows things about him that he doesn't know himself. Rae is drowning out everything else in L's life, L's best friend and soul-mate, the center of the universe.

L needs to save Rae, somehow.

L needs…

"Okay," L gasps, stupidly, because he physically cannot say anything else. Because he wants to maintain some ridiculous pretense that his brain is still functioning normally. Because he wants Rae more than anything else in his life. "Yeah. Okay."

* * *

It takes a while, because L keeps losing track of what he's meant to be doing. Rae keeps stroking his foot, over and over, dragging him steadily towards the edge without even doing anything indecent.

_Indecent_.

He's never wanted anything like this before. It washes over him in waves; _pleasure_ and _pressure_ and _want_ and _burn_ and _okay_.

He's safe here. He wants this to go on forever. He needs this to end, very very soon. He can't control his own fucking body, and that ought to be terrifying, but Rae is here and L is fine.

"Faster," Rae tells him, voice low and authoritative. "Geeze, how can anyone be this bad at _jerking off_?"

_I haven't had much practice_, L wants to say, but what comes out is 'nghh', so he goes with that instead. It pretty much articulates how he feels, anyway.

He still needs to figure out a way to restore Rae. He still needs to _oh fuck touch me like that again_.

Rae has his foot. His foot. Rae should not be capable of doing this much to him.

Rae could probably do this much to him just by standing quietly in the same room. Rae makes L feel crazy with a glance, with a single gesture.

"Faster," Rae says – Rae _commands_ – and it sounds like it's actually amused at all of this.

"Can't go faster," L grits. "I'll explode."

"The point," Rae says, and smirks, and oh fuck, there's the fucking edge. L is white-hot, everywhere. He's not actually sure he's going to survive this. He's going to die, right here, right now. He's going to die of _good_.

But he moves his hand faster anyway, even though he can't stand it, because Rae told him to.

_Is this going to hurt_, he wonders, vaguely.

"If you don't know how this feels, I'm not going to tell you," Rae informs him, so apparently L said that out loud. "Go. Faster."

Breathing is starting to seem extraneous, so L holds his breath. Rae pushes its thumb against the base of his toes, and _why_ does L have so many nerve endings in his feet? What's the use of that, other than…other than…other than…

The thought solidifies and freezes in L's head, cycling, over and over. He can't. He can't. He is actually going to die of sex.

Rae meets his flustered, unfocused gaze and caresses the arch of his foot, and L feels it like a fucking freight train to the groin, everything careering into _brightamazinggodgodgodfuck__._

* * *

L spends a good three minutes blearily trying to work out whether he's conscious or not, and whether he's ever going to be able to move again. He thinks all his limbs might be permanently broken, but he feels liquid and comfortable and good, like. Like he _needed_ that.

He doesn't understand his own body any more. He doesn't understand, but god, he wants to _do that again_. Later. After his brain re-solidifies.

Rae is still touching his foot. Lightly, now, like it's considering tickling him again. Like it is actually trying to drive him insane. The sensation is overwhelming.

_God no stop stop stop I can't._

_I want to crawl inside your chest and stay there forever._

It belatedly occurs to him that he's not actually under the blankets any more. Rae must have moved them, at some point, when L was too distracted to even notice. L is too exhausted and satiated to care. Rae watches everything he does. This is simply the logical progression of their relationship.

This was inevitable.

L clutches weakly at the pillowcase. He's still tingling. Still floating half a foot above the mattress. Rae lets go of his ankle – finally, _finally_ – walks to the head of the bed, and grabs him by the chin.

"You," it says, sternly. "You are mine, now."

This wasn't part of the plan. L had a plan, and it didn't involve having – _holy hell_ – having sex with Rae. L has to save Rae, somehow.

Rae obviously isn't scared, though. Rae doesn't seem at all concerned by its eyes, or the state of its wings. Rae is pursuing him, offering him everything he ever wanted.

L is pretty sure he's not capable of lying, right now.

"Yes," he says, quietly, covering Rae's hand with his own. "Yes. Yes."

He would have probably gone on saying yes forever, but his voice gives out, and he can do nothing but hang on.

"Good," Rae says, sounding insufferably smug, like the cat who got into the cream and the butter and the milk and the whole trawlerful of salmon. "Don't you forget."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ hopefully this bit wasn't as painful to read as it was to write.

+ still no promises about when the next chapter will be posted. /unreliable writer.

+ thank you so much for taking the time to read. I really appreciate it.


	57. Tremor

notes/warnings

+ three months later, she finally manages to update.

+ warnings for language, Jas trying to control people, the usual things.

* * *

**Tremor**

"No," Jas says, emphatically, the entire spectrum of her omniscient gaze focused squarely on L, only on L. "No. _No!_"

_You were my mascot._

_You were supposed to always be strong. _

_You were supposed to fight this demon._

_Why didn't you do what you were supposed to do?_

Jas feels a rush of anger, of illogical, petty rage. She's never asked anything of anyone. All she ever needed was for this one human to keep being strong, to keep being _good_. All she needed was for one person to give her hope.

But L is weak. L crumbled. L is _still hanging onto Rae's hand_, even though he is mostly asleep.

None of this was supposed to happen.

Jas curls her hands into fists, her fingernails digging painfully into her palms. She wishes she could bleed. She wants Remira to be here. She desperately wants a witness, someone to talk to, someone to attenuate this rage that plagues her.

_You let me down_.

There is no such thing as a good human.

"So be it," she says, dramatically, gravely, even though nobody will ever know.

With fury comes relief. She tied her resolve to L's. Now that he has failed, she can…she can do _anything_. She can choose whatever path she likes. She could bring the world to its knees. She could exterminate the entire human population. She could overthrow the king, and rule the Shinigami realm.

But no. She doesn't _want_ those things. She wants…

"On your head be it," she tells L, softly, hating him for not being able to hear her.

* * *

L wanders in at a quarter past eleven, looking drastically better than last night.

"Any information from the internet service provider?" he asks Mail, sounding businesslike and ordinary. His eye is bright, his skin looks freshly-scrubbed, and he's wearing clean jeans and a shirt that is actually white.

_Amazing, what a good night's sleep can achieve_, Raye thinks, somewhat smugly. He's never personally found sleep to be so very beneficial, but he imagines it works differently on a chronic insomniac. Besides, problems often seem more manageable in the morning, and L's problems aren't of the all-encompassing my-wife-is-dead variety.

Raye hates him a little, but that's okay. Raye is learning to work with that.

Mail briefly glances at L, then back to his computer.

"You slept with the skeleton," he deadpans.

"_What_?" Raye sputters, nearly dropping his coffee cup. "No, he didn't! What kind of a thing is that to say?"

L's expression sours immediately.

"Do you really think that sort of derailing is going to work?" he asks, coolly. "I'm still waiting for an explanation for what you did yesterday."

And Raye would really, really like it if L just came out and denied Mail's ridiculous assertions. Because there's this awful, niggly part of Raye's imagination that wonders whether L actually is involving himself in something terrible.

Surely not.

Surely.

It's a _skeleton_. Made of bones. Which are made of teeny, tiny skulls.

Even L isn't _that_ weird.

"You don't want an explanation," Mail says, lazily. "You just want an argument."

Aaand they're doing this again, apparently.

"You hurt someone I care for," L snaps. "I am allowed to want an argument."

Mail actually looks at him, then, eyes flashing and dangerous. Great. Now they're _both_ angry. This is just going to be fucking lovely. Raye just loves refereeing fights between his pedantic, infantile colleagues. And it's not like any of them have criminals to catch, or anything.

Mail gets up out of his chair.

"So?" he says. "Fuckin' throw me out, then. I don't care."

"You've never cared. But you never used to be a _liability_."

L raises his hand, stares at it, and then lets it drop back to his side. If they actually come to blows, one of them is going to snap in half. They're both skinny and fragile and undernourished.

"Come on," Raye coaxes. "This is pointless."

"I hate you," Mail says, without much emotion. "I hate you so much."

"You hate me?" L echoes, in disbelief.

"You have a _life_," Mail tells him. "You have a life and you're just fuckin' throwing it away-"

"I was not _throwing it away_. I was doing it because I –"

"If you fuckin' say it's because you fuckin' love that thing I will fuckin' punch you," Mail snarls. "Don't you _dare_ fuckin' tell me what it's like."

L's eye widens, and he recoils. For a moment neither of them speak. Then Mail sits back down in his chair, and L stares at him with a hollow expression. Mail is infuriating and exhausting and he can always win every argument because his life is just that awful. And L will always lose, because L cares too much for Mail. Even now, perhaps, when Mail has actually hurt him. Even now, L can't stop. And maybe he's only just starting to realise that.

Or maybe something has happened to make L a little bit softer. Or…no, not thinking about that one at all.

Raye reaches out awkwardly and puts his hand on L's shoulder.

"Leave it," he says, quietly. "It's not worth it. What's done is done."

"I've found the hacker," Mail deadpans, loudly. "If you're interested."

L sucks in a long, shaky breath.

"Thank you," he says, tensely, through gritted teeth.

Mail passes him a scrap of paper, holding his arm out at a random and unhelpful angle without actually looking away from his monitor.

"Dennis Rink. He's fuckin' nobody in the hacking world. No idea how he managed it."

"He's in Guildford," L murmurs. He glances wearily at Raye. "I will go."

"Alone?" Raye ventures.

"No, not alone," L tells him, and his expression doesn't change. It's nothing. It's definitely nothing. Mail is imagining things. "Take…take care of him until I get back."

"Understood," Raye replies.

_Geniuses_. They don't make any sense at all. If Naomi were here, she'd know what to do.

If Naomi were here.

* * *

"Rink is just a university student," L says, thoughtfully, staring at his laptop. "He's only twenty-one. He died for the first time when he was two years old, and grew up in the second world. There's no record anywhere of better-than-average programming skills."

"So someone is using him as a front," Rae says. "Obviously."

"Perhaps."

L is a little more twitchy than usual. His voice is a little softer than usual. But he's still thinking clearly, still working, still focused on the case. He's not all doe-eyed and fluttery and throwing himself at Rae. He's still himself.

_Why didn't I think of this sooner?_

Because it was never an option, sooner. Nothing can ever get in the way of Rae's plans. Not even L. Especially not L.

Rink's house is large, but ordinary-looking. Low-security.

"He's not expecting anyone to take interest in what he's doing," Rae says, dismissively. "Stupid."

The world is full of stupidity. Stupid people aren't _bad_, necessarily, but they're annoying. They're only useful in how easily they can be controlled. Of course, hacking the news is a pretty dumb thing to do in the first place. Rae has no sympathy for Rink.

Come to think of it, Rae has never had sympathy for anyone.

L shakes his head.

"Look at the shoes on the balcony," he says, softly. "Look at the makeshift letterbox repairs. Rink isn't stupid. He's poor. He probably can't afford good security."

"He's still stupid," Rae insists.

L stares for a moment.

"I forgot," he tells Rae solemnly. "I forgot how different our views were."

"I'm right," Rae tells him. L is in love now. He's supposed to _listen_. He's supposed to be at least a bit easy.

"You're wrong," L replies.

"I'm right!" Rae insists, more loudly, but L is already walking towards the door.

* * *

Dennis Rink isn't just poor because he's a student. He's poor because he has custody of both of his stepsisters, and he barely makes enough to feed the three of them. But that's not something Rae would have thought of.

This is problematic. L is attached to a Shinigami who still fundamentally supports Kira. After all this time, L still hasn't managed to make it see that Light was evil. And yet, despite their differences, they still…

If he stops to think about it, L starts feeling odd. Strange and gritty and tense. He has occasional flashbacks to what they did this morning, to how he felt, to the fact that he is actually trusting this skeleton.

To the fact that he's trusting this skeleton with more than he's ever trusted anyone with, ever.

But L doesn't stop to think about it often. Everything is fine. Everything is better than fine. He's solving a case with Rae, and he never dreamed he'd get this chance again. He's determined to make the most of it.

He can feel terrible about everything else later, when he gets back to his headquarters.

There are only two entrances to the house, which means there are only two ways out. Watari is waiting near the back door, in case things go wrong.

L doesn't just want an arrest. He wants the truth. He wants to know _why_ someone would devote their time to erasing so much important, public information.

Maybe he's just a sociopath. Maybe he's just a vandal. But maybe there's something else.

L readies his fake ID, and knocks on the door.

* * *

_On the day the notebook came to her, she asked why. She asked why, and the notebook said…_

Jas stands in the dark, suspended on the nothingness. In this whole universe, she is the only thing that moves.

Keehl sleeps, head tipped back, hands folded in his lap. His breath is faint, and he is perfectly still. To the untrained eye, he might appear dead.

Well, he is dead. They are all dead. All the thousands and thousands of humans that she guards. That she imprisons and judges and protects.

Millions of humans. The loss of one won't even register. Nobody will know. Nobody will care. If he never leaves hell, people will simply presume that he deserved to stay.

She's never had anything for herself. The notebook owns her, the notebook _is_ her.

_The notebook said…_

_The notebook said 'because'._

She could just take him. Change his world. Make him believe that he wants to be by her side. She can give him wings and a sense of obligation and make him her companion. She can give him back his old body, his real body, and he'd probably be so pleased that he would never question anything she did.

She can have him. She's powerful enough to just take him. She's powerful enough that she'd never get caught.

L had his moment of weakness. This will be hers.

_The notebook said 'because you are…'_

She barely remembers what the notebook said. It doesn't matter. It's hers now. A single thought, a few scribbled words, and she can railroad Keehl's entire existence.

There are other things she could do. Less drastic things. She could offer him the option to be with her and then wipe his memory. She could take away his second chance, and just keep him in his hell-box like a piece of artwork.

She can mold the whole world. But why should she do that? Why should she exercise restraint? There are plenty of things that are less drastic than a human sleeping with a Shinigami, too.

Especially _that_ Shinigami. Jas stomps her foot hard, instinctively.

She's so tired. She's exhausted. She's sick of her responsibility.

She is the notebook. The notebook is her.

She already has the changes mapped out. How she'll wake Keehl, and what she'll say. How she'll manipulate his thoughts and emotions as she speaks. How she'll make him forget Jeevas, even if she can't force his love from him.

Easy. None of these things are difficult.

Jas reaches out with her right hand.

It's still a big step. It's such a big step. She's never done anything like this before. She promised herself she was allowed to do this.

It's not like she's turning evil.

Jas hesitates, her hand hanging in the air, in limbo.

_She asked why, and the notebook said 'because you are moderation'._

Not good. Not bad. Not neutral. Just…balanced.

_The notebook said…_

Everyone knows that notebooks can't talk.

* * *

L doesn't torture Rink. He just places him in the surveillance room and has Watari question him by video-link.

Rink will talk. He loves his sisters. He knows that L knows where his sisters live, where his sisters are staying right now. He'll talk easily.

"This turned out to be a simple case," L says, softly. "I'm sorry."

He's not really apologizing to Rae. He's just…sorry. They have a little under three weeks left together. There might not be another case.

There might not be another case, and Rae isn't going to stop supporting the original Kira and L still doesn't know whether or not he ought to use the notebook. Everything is a mess.

Rink struggles against his binds and begs to be let down. L watches him intently. They've been through his possessions. They know he wasn't working alone. They know he was part of a large, unstructured organization consisting of at least two hundred hackers. From Rink's laptop, they'll be able to trace at least twenty or so of his associates.

An underground ring of hackers isn't anything new. Hacking public news websites is new. Destroying information is new.

Someone like Dennis Rink getting involved in something like this, even though he has so much to lose, is also new.

"I'm interested in why he did it," Rae says, resting its bony elbows on the desk. "Our preliminary research indicates that no money changed hands."

"Poor people aren't always motivated by money," L says primly.

Inwardly, he's thrilled. He'd almost forgotten what it was like, to have someone who thought the way he did. To have someone like Rae, who arrives at the same conclusions at almost the same time.

Idly, he wonders if this is what Mail and Mello were like, back when they were together.

"_Everyone_ is motivated by money," Rae says, knowingly. "Money and power."

"Not all of the time," L says, quietly. "Not everyone."

Rae rolls its eyes.

"Were you always this pathetic?" it complains, poking him.

L finds himself grinning for a moment, despite everything.

"Stop that," Mail snaps at them, from the other side of the room. "I'm fuckin' trying to work. Go and be awkward somewhere else."

L sobers instantaneously. He's still furious with Mail for everything. And he can see, now that he's looking, that Rae's wings are smaller than before.

It's happening again. It's happening quickly. This is exactly what L wanted to avoid.

Rink is blathering about how much he loves his sisters, about how clever and beautiful and smart they are. About how they aren't involved with the hacking ring, and how he wants some sort of promise that they'll be protected. All L wants to know is _why_.

"Fuck _you_," Rae tells Mail, with dignity.

Not for the first time, L wonders how old the Shinigami really is.

"Your sisters are of no consequence to us," Watari replies, politely. "They are presently uninvolved with this investigation. I suggest you answer the original question."

Rink stills, and gives a disbelieving little laugh.

"Why? You mean you honestly don't _know_? It isn't _obvious_?"

"Hey," Mail mutters, and L wants to ignore him, but he just _can't_. "Hey. Something's…something's wrong."

His voice sounds soft and strange, like he's going to faint. L rushes over to him, because he always, always has to look after Mail, even when he's angry, even when Mail has ruined everything.

Mail clutches at his face, hard enough that the skin starts to bleed beneath his fingernails. L touches the top of his head.

"What is it?" he asks. "What's wrong?"

"He's finally having a breakdown," Rae guesses.

"Shut up," L orders.

"Something's wrong," Mail repeats. His eyes are glassy and dim. "Something's happening. She can't…she can't…don't let her…"

Watari turns away from the speaker, and spears L with a questioning look. L kneels down on the floor and shakes Mail's shoulder.

"Nothing is happening," he says, with certainty.

"Is he asleep?" Rae wonders.

"You aren't helping," L says, tensely.

He has occasionally wondered whether Mail's mind will eventually implode. Whether he'll go mad from grief, from the sick little half-life he's forced himself to live, and forget who he is entirely.

What happens to the mentally ill? Are they restored when they die? Or do they go on from world to world, never stopping, never safe.

"She's..:" Mail begins, and then shakes his head, as if everything is hopeless.

_Is this really madness, though_?

_Or is this the hell-god again?_

"There aren't any women here," L points out, gently.

Mail blinks at him blearily.

"What the fuck just happened?" he asks, rubbing at his face. "Why do I feel awful?"

"I have no idea," L replies, honestly.

* * *

Why should she exercise restraint?

She is god. She is the ruler of the universe. She is everything Light Yagami ever dreamed of. Everything that he could never be, that he could never have achieved.

But she is not like him.

And still, she does not wake Keehl. She does not move.

If she stays alone for all eternity, she might eventually become unstable. She might go mad. So in a way, taking a companion is a sensible idea. A _good_ idea. Something that L would approve of.

No.

L would never approve of this. Even in principle. Even if he didn't know that it was his protégé she was considering. L defends all lives. L is good, with a capital 'g'.

Jas is moderation.

What does that even mean?

Taking Keehl isn't a terrible thing. She knows for a fact that he would make her happier. They would both be happier, if she plucked him from hell. She would be his hero.

Jas has always wanted to be somebody's hero.

And yet, she cannot do _this_.

With a frustrated, noiseless growl, Jas lets her arm drop back to her side. Keehl sleeps on, unwitting and undisturbed.

Jas shakes her head. She could come back tomorrow. She could come back in half an hour. She could try over and over, every second of every day, and she'd eventually override her own cautious nature.

But she would always be unsure. If she took him, she would never be certain. She'd always wonder whether she'd crossed the line.

She has to take him based on merit. He has to _choose_ to stay with her.

She is omnipotent. She can make him an offer he can't refuse. And the outcome will be the same, and she won't have done a single thing wrong.

Jas turns on her heel and leaves, humming quietly under her breath.

She will live for all eternity. She must always be able to live with herself.

* * *

The tremors ease quickly. L lets him go without another word, and they proceed with questioning Rink.

For the briefest of moments, Mail feels incredibly relieved.

He doesn't understand why.

* * *

"Why have you locked me up?" Rink asks. "I'm not a murderer. I'm not a criminal. I'm not a bad guy at all. I might not be a hero, but I'm not a bad guy. I haven't done anything wrong."

"Right," Mail mutters. "Those websites just hacked themselves, did they?"

Occasionally Rae wonders what Mail should have been like. What sort of person he was before he died and became a semi-human shell.

Rae doesn't really care one way or the other. Mail is just one more boring, ordinary person with poor personal hygiene and a fairly standard fairytale-style tragic love. Rae could probably go out onto the street and pick out twenty people who'd be just like him, given the same circumstances.

But Mail _is_ important. More important than anyone else, even.

More important than anyone but L.

L is presently twirling on his chair, listening to Rink and staying within arm's reach of Mail. Rae has the strange, childish urge to push him over. To tussle with him, and make him childish and flushed and entertaining again.

Rink is still talking. Rae shakes its head, annoyed at itself for getting distracted.

It never used to get distracted.

"You have to believe me. I did it to protect people. We all did it to protect people. That's what our organization was called."

"_Ordinary Angels_," Watari says, reading from his laptop. "Yes, I did notice that. Who did you think you were protecting?"

"In this country," Rink says. "In the past five years alone, there have been over a thousand proven cases of people being convicted of felonies they didn't commit."

"That's not true," Rae says, promptly. "The justice system is better than that."

"It is definitely true," L says, with a weak smile. "There was a paper published earlier this year. The research was very thorough. The justice system is quite fallible."

"I fail to see the connection," Watari tells Rink.

"Criminals are criminals," Rae says, sharply. "When society has decided that that's what they are-"

"Then society is sometimes wrong," L retorts. "This is the reality, Rae. Statistically, Light must have killed dozens of innocent people."

"_No_," Rae snarls. This isn't right. This cannot be right.

And if it is, then society is _wrong_. The justice system is wrong for being fallible. For misrepresenting innocent people.

_It's not…_

_It wasn't…_

Rae can't find the words. Rae cannot fucking find the words.

This has never happened before.

_It was someone else's fault_.

"Settle down," L says, patiently. "Nobody is blaming you. You're a god of death; you cannot be expected to understand the intricacies of human culture."

And then his eye widens and he turns to Watari.

"He was trying to protect people from Kira," he says, abruptly. "Rink was trying to erase the names and faces of criminals from the media. I am eighty percent certain."

"That's not counting the numbers of people who are imprisoned awaiting trial, and then found to be innocent," Rink continues, and if Rae had a notebook right now it would smite him on the spot.

_Shut up shut up shut up._

"And how do you claim to be protecting these people?" Watari asks, patiently, stupid ugly stupid old man.

"The death penalty is illegal in all Western societies in the entire second world," Rink announces. "We protect people from Kira. We remove their names and faces from public access. That is what we did. That is all we did."

"That's sort of admirable," L says, quietly.

_Kira was right._

_Kira was right._

_It wasn't._

_It was your fault._

_It was Rem's fault._

_I…_

Nothing is okay. Rae wants to break the world into tiny little pieces. Rae wants to find every single person who worked on that paper and scream at them until they admit they are wrong.

"In this case," L says, turning to Watari, "I would suggest we use our influence to try and get Rink and the other perpetrators a lighter sentence."

"Understood," Watari replies, and they're both idiots. They both don't understand a single thing.

If Rae could, it would erase L's memory completely. It would take away everything he ever learned. It would make him _easy_.

_Nobody is blaming you_.

Maybe he is easy, anyway. Even with all his knowledge.

L reaches up and touches Rae's bottom rib.

"Take it easy," he says softly. Like he's talking to Mail. Like he really _cares_. "Everything is okay."

* * *

_On Wednesday, Gemma calls. Or at least, Gemma mumbles into the phone while Matt yammers in the background about how clever and awesome she is, and how he's totally teaching her computer programming before her next birthday._

"_Hi Uncle," she says. "I'vegottadolly."_

_You don't actually give a crap about dollies. You remember as a child feeling sorry for the girls at the orphanage, because dolls and dollhouses and teddy bears always seemed so boring. Dinosaurs and trucks and superheroes and aliens always seemed so much more exciting._

_Of course, then you just grew to hate toys, because toys became Near's thing, and you despise anything that reminds you of Near._

"_What's her name?" you ask, because you aren't allowed to ignore Gemma for too long or Matt shouts at you._

"_Gemma," Gemma replies. She's brilliant, but not exactly imaginative._

"_That must get confusing."_

"_Not for me!" she says, gleefully. "Also, I have a policeman called Mummy and a rabbit called Daddy."_

"_And don't you dare laugh," Matt demands._

"_Sometimes my rabbit gets lonely," Gemma continues. _

_It's weird, how quickly she's grown up. How well she can speak. Occasionally, you feel like time isn't quite right, either._

_Or maybe it's the sky that isn't right._

_There certainly isn't anything wrong with Gemma, anyway._

_And it's odd, the way your heart clenches when she says the rabbit is lonely. Like that means anything. Like Matt isn't married with a doting wife and a child and dozens of friends._

"_I'm sorry to hear that," you say, sincerely._

"_Also I have a hippo called Uncle," Gemma adds. "He's you."_

"_Thanks a lot!" you exclaim, narrowly overriding the urge to swear. Gemma is small. She doesn't understand that you hate your ugly fat body._

_She doesn't understand that you used to be someone else. Someone decent. Except you never were, really. Even that was a lie._

_Gemma talks about nothing for another fifteen minutes. Then you go to your usual store to buy chocolate, but they've sold out and all the other stores are too far away._

_It's weird. They've never sold out before._

* * *

tbc_  
_

* * *

notes/warnings

+ this fic is not abandoned, this fic is not dead. I am still incredibly invested in writing this story and getting it posted. unfortunately my real life is still demanding and unpredictable, and I am still not giving any deadlines for the next update. I realise that it must be incredibly frustrating to have a fic go from an update a week to one update every few months, and I completely understand that many of you may have given up/stopped reading etc. all I can do is offer my apologies and write when I am able. I know that I'm lucky to have readers at all, let alone ones who comment. I am grateful to all of you who have stuck with me through my flakiness and tardiness. thank you.


	58. Supporter

notes/warnings

+ warning for some discussion of consent issues.

+ warning for not much actually happening.

* * *

**Supporter**

They spend the rest of the day browsing the news for new cases.

Usually, L would have a handful of requests in his inbox. Messages from various international politicians and police forces; all urgent, all asking for his help with complicated cases. Usually he'd be _needed_.

But nobody has messaged him recently. He's become old and incompetent. Near is in the second world, and so L is almost useless.

Except things won't be that way any more, because Rae is back. And together, they are brilliant. Better than anyone else.

"What are you grinning about?" Raye asks, cautiously.

"Nothing," L replies. "Why are you spending your time watching me instead of your computer monitor?"

Raye rolls his eyes and silence falls once more. Rae is out scouting around the city, in case anything is happening locally. Mail is more or less just staring out the window. Watari is off making rhubarb crumble, and L is kind of looking forward to the results.

"Some crazy guy stabbed a few people and then escaped from jail," Raye points out. "Ross Greenpod. He's considered to be still at large in the London area."

"So what?" Mail asks, grumpily.

"That is probably a little beneath me," L adds. "I know I'm unpopular, but I'm reluctant to start doing everyday police work."

"What will happen if you run out of money?" Raye wonders. "We'll have to split up. We'll have to find somewhere else to live. I'd have to get another job."

"That won't happen," L says, with certainty.

* * *

He ends up taking on a case from the local headquarters. A medium-sized drug ring. L solves it on his own, in under an hour. He doesn't feel particularly fulfilled.

He feels okay, though. Outside, the sun is shining through the rain.

Naomi is dead. Mello is still in hell.

L sits with Mail for a few hours, and tries to piece things together in his head. If he is to do anything for Rae, he must act quickly. They have nineteen days left together. If Rae is in hell, if anyone is manipulating his Shinigami, then it is likely to happen once they part company.

_I wonder why you were given five years?_

Why not four? Why not ten? Five is a nice round number, but that's hardly a _good_ reason. If Rae is being judged or tested somehow, then surely the reason has something to do with L. Perhaps the hell-god – or the king, or whoever – knew that L would end up becoming Rae's friend, if given enough time. Perhaps this test was never meant to be difficult.

But what really bothers L is this: perhaps this isn't Rae's real test at all. Perhaps L's use of the notebook is inconsequential. Perhaps something else is going to happen to Rae.

Unless L can access the hell-god, he will never know until it is too late. And nobody can help him. Rae doesn't believe him, and the others cannot remember. Near has some immunity to the hell-god's influence, but Near will probably try to get rid of Rae himself if he knows too much.

And Near is risky. L doesn't really _know_ him.

What about the one who beat Near? What does he know? Would he be useful, if he were in the second world?

It doesn't matter. It is irrelevant. Bringing an unknown person into this could be disastrous.

What about Grianna Jones, then? She has owned a death note, and she knows of the god of hell. And last time they met, she thanked L. For something.

Would she come, if L summoned her?

Would it be worth summoning her, knowing that he'd have to make a public announcement, knowing that he'd be giving away the location of himself or one of his staff at a given time and place? Knowing that many other people would probably show up, or that someone else might have already bought Grianna's loyalty?

Knowing that Light might be in the world, and waiting for a chance like this?

How much is L willing to sacrifice for his Shinigami? For the tiniest chance of making sure Rae will be okay in the end? And with a tremendous risk of learning nothing, of coming away empty-handed?

How much is L willing to sacrifice?

Mail flicks his cigarette butt in the general direction of the place where the bin used to be three months ago. He shoves his hair out of his eyes, and goes back to his laptop without saying a word. L watches him in mirroring silence.

Mail is his limit. No matter what, he isn't willing to sacrifice Mail.

* * *

By the time Rae has found what it was looking for and returned to base, L is asleep. Rae gets to the bedroom by walking through walls. It likes the fact that infrastructure is no longer a barrier. It likes the fact that L can never hide.

L is sleeping with his knees drawn up to his chest, and one arm folded under his head. He looks as young as the day Rae met him.

That's one of the good things about the second world. Nobody ages. L will never grow uglier, and L will never grow old. He'll always be decorative, in his own odd little way. He'll never be beautiful, but he _is_ appealing. His vulnerability is appealing. The depth of his mind is appealing. The fact that, in the end, he fell in love with Rae as if he'd never stood a chance of holding out is appealing.

L doesn't love people. Part of his strength was his emotional distance. And that's why he's more important than anyone else who has ever loved Rae.

L shifts beneath his sheets and mutters something incomprehensible.

Rae has been having waking dreams again, too. The window on the left, the boy on the right, the demand not to look.

Something is wrong with the whole scenario. Something beyond the absurdity of it all, beyond the mere human ordering Rae around. Something to do with the chair. Or maybe the desk.

Rae shakes its head, firmly. It has real problems in the _real_ world, and it will not be distracted by nightmares. There are two things that it needs to focus on, right here and now.

One is L's inherent evil streak. He was happy enough to let criminals roam the streets, rather than being disposed of by Kira. He toys with lives and sacrifices people. And although Rae is convinced that it can make him good, it needs to make him good _in time_.

Because if L dies in this world, L will go to hell. Of that, Rae is certain. And Rae wants L around. So L must never, ever die here.

The second problem is L's resistance to Kira. Still. After all this time. After everything Rae has done and said and explained.

It's time to do something about that. L is in love, now, so everything else should be easy.

"Hey," Rae says, poking L in the arm. "Get up."

L groans and doesn't open his eye.

"It is midnight."

Rae glances at the clock.

"You can't possibly know that," it says, irritably. "Come on, get up."

L struggles to his feet. Rae puts a hand on his back, and helps him up. Not because it has to. Not because it's socially expected, or because people are watching and it wants to look like a good person. Because it wants to.

Rae wants L to stay with it, but Rae also wants L to _want_ to stay with it. This is new.

It's okay, though. Everything is okay.

"What is it?" L asks, his voice low and hoarse. "Is something wrong?"

"We're going up onto the roof," Rae tells him. "Bring your binoculars. I want to show you something."

* * *

_You go down to the store again, but they still don't have any chocolate bars. They don't have chocolate biscuits, or chocolate cake, or chocolate-flavoured drinks. They don't even have that plain cheesecake that comes with cocoa sprinkled on top._

"_Problem with our suppliers," the cashier says, eyeing you like he's worried you're going to steal something._

_Everyone treats you like a criminal. You kind of are a criminal, actually._

"_Oh," you say, stupidly. "So, uh. When will there be more?"_

_You've had a headache all day. _

"_I dunno," the cashier replies. "Next week, probably."_

"_Oh."_

_You feel shaky and unstable. You need chocolate to feel normal. If Near finds out that you're actually addicted, he's going to have a field day. And then he's probably going to make it so that you can never see Matt again._

"_Anyway," the cashier continues, "it might do you good. You look like you could stand to lose some weight."_

_You tell him to get fucked. Then you steal a packet of sweets. It's what everyone expects of you, anyway._

* * *

L stands under what is left of Rae's wings. He doesn't want to get soaked by the rain. Not tonight. Tonight is okay.

L shouldn't feel okay. Rae is debilitated again, and he has failed nearly everyone he cares about. He's failed the world. There is a good reason he can't find decent cases any more.

The view up here is fantastic. L can see most of London, spread out in every direction. The binoculars dangle from his fingertips, although really only half of the device is useful to him. Rae leads him wordlessly to a particular spot on the roof, and then points out into the distance.

"Seventeenth floor of the white building. Third window from the left."

L raises the binoculars and peers into the window. He can make out a very small room, only wide enough to fit two beds and a cradle. There's a filthy sink in one corner. A raggedy-looking young woman is nursing an infant, while two young children play on the floor.

"That is their home," Rae tells him. "That one room. That's all they can afford."

"That is sad," L agrees. "But why are you showing them to me?"

"When that baby was born, her husband was still alive," Rae continues. "He was murdered only recently. His murderer was acquitted."

L chews on his thumb.

"If you knew about this at the time, why didn't you tell me?" he says, softly. "We perhaps could have helped the case."

"There was no evidence," Rae snarls. "That's the problem, L. Bad people walk free, and good people get hurt."

"But-"

"Watercross Lane, between the grey building and the Hudson's residential building."

L sighs, and obliges.

"See the homeless woman? With the red hair? She was held prisoner and abused for years. She escaped, but had a psychological breakdown. Her abuser was never convicted. She never recovered."

L is actually familiar with her story. She's done some surveillance work for him, in the past. She's actually quite functional, but has chosen to remain homeless.

Rae probably wouldn't understand something like that.

"I see," is all he says.

"Kira would have stopped him," Rae tells him.

"If Kira was intending to kill everyone who was accused of a crime, regardless of the conviction, he also would have killed a lot of innocent people."

"Those innocent people would not have gone to hell," Rae points out.

"Light didn't know that," L says, irritably.

"Behind you, the parking lot just in front of the bakery," Rae growls. "Someone is getting their bag snatched right now."

The Shinigami is getting angry. Clearly, it was hoping to prove some sort of point to him. But it is wasting its time. Nothing will ever convince L that Light was right. Because Light was _wrong_. Evil and power-hungry and dangerous and terrifying and wrong. Rae is too idealistic. Rae is exactly the sort of person that Light wanted. Someone young and naïve and emphatic and influential.

"Then, let's call the police," L murmurs, reaching for his phone.

"The justice system is fallible," Rae says. "You said so yourself. You need to make up your damn mind. Look to your left. The big brick building, nineteenth floor-"

"No," L interrupts. "No, I do not need to make up my mind. I know the justice system is fallible. And I do the best I can."

"So you never supported Kira? You always wanted all those criminals to live? To go on hurting other people?"

"Your second and third statements are not mutually inclusive," L warns Rae. "And besides, I would have more sympathy for your case if I thought you genuinely cared about the people you use as examples."

"What?" Rae sputters. "What do you mean? Why do you think I want to be king? So that I can _protect_ people like that."

"If that were true," L says slowly. "If they were genuinely important to them, then you would value their health over their use as examples. You are living with a millionaire. You would have at least tried to convince me to donate to their causes. I don't think you care about them at all."

"Fuck you," Rae says, darkly. "How _dare_ you say that."

"Light Yagami was a monster," L says, and it's kind of a relief to properly make his case to Rae. "He cared only for himself. But you don't have to believe in him, and you certainly don't have to be like him. It would do you well to learn from someone else's mistakes, my friend."

"Do you really think these people don't want their attackers dead?" Rae demands, its voice venomous and angry. "Do you really think they're glad that Kira no longer exists in this world?"

"They ought to be," L says, coolly. "And now, I'm going back to bed."

* * *

If there were any loose objects on the roof, Rae would be throwing them at L's head.

_Fuck you. _

_Fuck you._

_You don't know anything. You're no better than anyone_.

L is just a stupid person. Rae doesn't care about him. Rae doesn't need him. Rae doesn't care about _anyone_, and Kira was right, and everything is going to be fine.

Wait. Rae doesn't care about anyone?

No. That's hyperbole. Rae cares about everyone. They matter, these filthy, disgusting, boring, _ordinary_ people. They matter, and Rae is doing everything for them, like the best sort of charity. Like the best sort of _person_, and L is wrong.

Rae didn't ask L to help those people because…because that's not Rae's fucking _responsibility_, anyway. People get themselves into situations and they shouldn't rely on gods and heroes to save them all the fucking time.

But Rae cares about everyone, really.

Slowly, subtly, Rae's intensely-guarded point of view is starting to become unwound.

_Kira was right._

_Kira was right._

_L is wrong._

_Kira was right._

_It wasn't my fault._

_Don't look._

_Kira was…_

Rae is overwhelmingly angry. It hasn't given up, but it is _furious_. At L. It wants to take him apart, piece by piece. It wants to hurt him until he understands. It wants to remove him from the world, and be rid of all the terrible things that he says.

And yet, even now, it wants him to live.

* * *

"Are you okay?" L asks, when Rae appears by his side a few hours later.

"Don't talk to me," Rae snarls.

L pulls himself up and crouches on the edge of his mattress.

"I like you a lot," he says, quietly. "And I cannot tell you what to believe. I know that for you, Kira is a concept. And conceptually, if we lived in a world without criminals, where everyone was good, then that would be a wonderful world."

Rae eyes him wearily.

"It's nice to know you aren't completely stupid," it says, unkindly.

"And I know you want that, and I know you identify with him because he seemed to want what you want," L continues. "But the thing is, deep down? All Light wanted was to be great."

"Seriously, shut up," Rae says, but a little less harshly.

L reaches out and places his hand over Rae's giant, bony fingers.

"I don't want to see you follow in his footsteps," L says, smiling a little. "You are worth so much more than that."

Rae doesn't answer for a moment. It clenches and unclenches its free hand and seems to gaze around the room restlessly.

"Of course," it says, finally. "Of course I am."

If they can't agree on Kira, at least they can agree on Rae. That is something. That is more than L expected, actually.

"Of course. Do you want to sleep in my bed?"

"No," Rae says, balefully.

So L curls up and goes to sleep on his own, and tries not to think about the fact that through that entire angry, frustration-riddled incident, Rae's eyes stayed completely brown.

* * *

Yes, this is good. This strategy is okay.

It won't take long. A few weeks, at most. And it gives Jas something to focus on, besides L's weakness, L's betrayal.

She watches Keehl stumble about in his hell-box, an indulgent smile forming on her lips. He's still hot-tempered and reactive. Easy to predict.

She'll take everything away from him and then offer him the world. And he won't say no.

He's only human.

* * *

"There's an email from the police. Some mass murderer is killing a fucktonne of people."

The intercom sounds loud and abrasive, and L flails in its general direction for a few seconds before he gets up.

Clearly, he just isn't supposed to sleep tonight.

"Thank you, Mail," he replies, quietly. He reaches for his laptop and accidentally kicks Rae, who is doing something that looks suspiciously like sleeping across the end of L's bed.

The message from the local police force is brief. The murderer is opportunistic and frantic, and he's killed five people in the past three hours. It's too early to tell whether he's actually an advanced criminal, or if he's someone the police can subdue on their own without too much help. They're probably just calling L because he's close and available, and because he did a decent enough job with the drug ring case yesterday. Which is kind of insulting.

L would rather be insulted than useless, though.

"What's happening?" Rae demands, resting one heavy hand on top of L's head. "Why are you even awake?"

L grins at his Shinigami.

"Want to catch a murderer?" he asks.

"Always," Rae replies.

* * *

By morning, the media has a name for this new murderer. By morning, ten people have been killed, systematically and quickly, a chainsaw to the chest. All young men. All with curly hair. The case isn't baffling as much as it is urgent. The police need to know where the murderer is _now_, and what he's going to do next.

"They all graduated from college in the past two years," Raye says, rubbing at his eyes. "Other than that, I can't see any connection."

"We're not looking for a connection," L says. "We're looking for a killer. Get me all the information the police have on the victims."

"Two of the victims were orphans," Mail says. "Three were only-children. One had seven siblings. Two were-"

"That's not useful," Rae snaps.

"Then _you_ be useful and check the medical records," L says, as patiently as he can manage. This case is a particularly stressful one. A lot of people will die if he fails.

He stares at the photographs of the victims.

"They all look very similar," he murmurs, even though it's an obvious fact that even Raye Penber has probably already spotted.

"Ben Little was diagnosed with autism when he was seven," Rae says. "Malcolm Bait has a family history of breast cancer. Three of the others had influenza vaccines last year. Say, maybe _that's_ the connection."

L ignores the sarcasm. They already have a connection.

They…already have a connection. What they need is a motive. And a suspect. And more time. L is so stupid. It's been so long since he's had a real, important case.

"Contact the police," he tells Raye. "I want every person in London who resembles these men under armed guard."

"That's ridiculous," Rae says. "The police don't have those sort of resources. And they definitely don't have that sort of money."

"_I_ do," L says. "You focus on finding the murderer. I will protect the people."

This is what he is for.

* * *

Things don't get less weird, but they do get more successful. L and Rae identify the murderer just before dusk, bouncing ideas off each other like they've been working together for years.

"Look at the way Little was disfigured. The killer must have been left handed. We know something about him already."

"We also know that he was probably having a psychotic episode."

"How do we know that?"

"All the wounds were inflicted from the chest. That means he looked each of his victims in the eye while he was killing them."

"Good point. Hey, you know who the victims resemble? Roland Tank. The cancer patient who was in the news last week."

"Tank? Wasn't he the poster child for the voluntary euthanasia movement?"

The killer turns out to be Roland's brother. Psychotic episode. He watched Roland suffer for months on end while his hospital was emblazoned in an ethics battle with a large religious sect. Now he's trying to euthanise a hundred copies of his brother, over and over again.

The second world. Sometimes it's more progressive than the first world. And sometimes, it's just as rotten. Nobody should have to suffer forever.

Except Light. Raye hopes he's burning in hell. Raye hopes he's screaming.

He also hopes Naomi is okay. Wherever she is, now.

"Seriously, who tries to euthanise someone with a chainsaw?" Rae demands, folding its arms. "That's just _stupid_. And counterproductive."

"He probably didn't even know what was going on," Raye murmurs. "Poor bastard."

"Do either of you know what it's like to be insane?" Mail asks, very quietly.

"Of course not," Rae says.

"Then shut up," Mail snaps.

L meets Raye's eyes, and then looks away. Raye wonders how he's feeling right now. He wonders how low someone would have to sink, before they'd even consider a _Shinigami-_

No, he's still not thinking about that. L and Mail seem to be getting along a little better, anyway. The team is working reasonably well.

The team of four. Three, if you don't count the invisible skeleton monster.

Things are getting more successful, but sometimes Raye still finds himself wondering which of them will die next. Like it's inevitable.

* * *

They take three more cases; all serial killers, all difficult. The money that L lost trying to be some sort of ridiculous hero is starting to build up again.

The world doesn't need ridiculous heroes. It needs action, not symbolism.

Rae can't remember the numbers that used to be over L's head. It can't remember, but it's sure that L won't die anytime soon. Not with Rae around to protect him. The very notion is inconceivable.

This is new, too. This is a new sort of power. It's a new way to be better than someone; where instead of wanting to crush them, Rae wants to defend them.

_Because you are mine_.

It's nice. Owning someone is nice. The way L hates Kira - pointlessly and dogmatically - isn't nice, but that's okay. Rae is working on that.

_"I don't want to see you follow in his footsteps."_

Theoretially, Rae could just pretend to have stopped believing in Kira.

No.

That is drastic. Unpalatable. _Losing._

"My reputation has improved," L murmurs, leaning aimlessly against the wall. "I was mentioned on two news channels last night."

"You're welcome," Rae says, sweetly.

L grins and rolls his eyes, like he's trying to convey both affection and exasperation in the same expression. He looks tired, even though it's the middle of the day. He's getting weak in his old age. Rae pokes him in the ribs.

"Look at your wings," L says, sadly. "They're stumps."

"Look at your _face_," Rae retorts.

They don't have anything to do right now. There is time for banter. Time to be smug. The spoils go to the victor, and Rae never ever loses.

"I want popcorn," L murmurs.

Rae blinks at him.

"Wait," it says, overdramatically. "I think I need to sit down. Did you just say-"

"_Caramel_-covered popcorn."

"Oh."

"Or maybe frosted."

Rae leans over L. It's tall, taller than everyone. Taller the way a god king ought to be. L is tiny. He watches Rae casually, one hand behind his head, the other at his side. He isn't scared, and that's gratifying in its own way. Rae can frighten people whenever it chooses. But it can also make people feel safe.

Rae has so many skills and abilities, and it is kind of laughable that anyone ever even _tried_ to stand in Rae's way. It can have anything it wants. _Anything_.

"I'm going to find a way to fix you," L says, suddenly serious again. "I will not have you debilitated like this."

"No," Rae orders, shaking its head. "You mind your own business. If you try anything, I will stop you."

The thing about being big is that you can say whatever you want. You can say what you are _actually thinking_. You don't need to lie and manipulate and charm and coerce people into agreement. It's kind of a relief to be able to tell L to stop being a giant fucking idiot instead of grinning and bearing all his utter stupidity all the time.

"Perhaps," L muses, in a tone of voice that suggests he isn't _actually _convinced.

But he should be. Because Rae can stop him. Any time. Rae can do anything it wants. And right now, it would like to make L _scream_.

Of course, it has always wanted that. But not like this. This is new.

L still doesn't move. He seems to be considering something. With the 'something' probably being his next sugar-saturated meal. Rae touches the corner of his mouth. L is an expensive professional. His popularity is demonstrated by the resilience of his reputation. A dozen failures, a meager handful of successes, and everyone respects him again. He could probably charge a hundred dollars a _word_ and still get jobs.

_This mouth is worth a lot_.

The sum of L is worth a lot. Of course. Rae would hardly have chosen someone _ordinary._

Rae smooths the soft white shirt over L's stomach, and then reaches for his belt. Rae never had any interest in sex until it met L. Now it is beginning to understand all the _fuss_ people make. Rae can drink L's pleasure the same way it used to savour his suffering.

L blinks a few times, sleepy and catlike. And then, without warning, he grabs Rae's hand.

"No," he says, with certainty.

_Huh_?

This isn't right. Nobody ever says no, because Rae is perfect.

"What?"

"I said 'no'," L repeats. "Stop."

Rae is suddenly struck with the urge to just pick him up and throw him at the bed, because this is suddenly far too much like a competition and L seems to be winning. And L can only ever win if he sides with Rae.

But that would be a crime, and Rae is a good person. Rae is the _best_ person and also the best Shinigami, so it removes its hand from his jeans and glares at him instead.

"Why?" it demands.

_Are you actually stupid?_

"I want to get a head-start on the next case," L mumbles, and shuffles past Rae, making a beeline for the corridor.

Rae was kind of expecting something like that. Either the next case, or the fact that the door was open, or the fact that L is hungry. Something pathetic and yet easily resolved.

It isn't a big deal.

But then L turns, thumb pressed against his lower lip.

"Actually," he says, slowly. "That wasn't the reason at all. Honestly, I just wanted to know if you'd stop."

Rae freezes, motionless with surprise and mounting anger.

_You._

_You thought._

_You thought I might be like that?_

Now Rae wants to throw the bed at L, instead.

"So that's what you think of me," it snarls, furiously. "Everything I've done for you, and you're treating me like a common fucking criminal."

L scratches the back of his neck.

"Is it the 'criminal' part that bothers you?" he asks, with interest. "Or the 'common'?"

He's horrible. He's horrible and _Rae has been looking after him_ and ungrateful and disgusting and small and how did Rae ever even _think_…

The words _L Lawliet_ flash into existence over L's head. L's lips quirk minutely, as if he can see them too.

And then Rae gets it.

And laughs.

"That was pretty good," it tells him, after a few minutes of pointed chuckling. "I think you nearly had me for a moment there."

L sighs.

"Just give up, seriously," Rae suggests. "I'll see through anything that you do."

"No," L says, gravely. "I will never give up on you."

L is an idiot, but sometimes he says things, and sometimes.

Sometimes.

Sometimes Rae feels…

No. Everything is fine.

* * *

_The next time they come for you, it's the middle of the day. You're sleeping on the couch, because every store in the town has run out of chocolate and nothing makes sense and there doesn't seem to be any reason to be conscious any more._

_They come for you, right through the front door. Dwayne is at work. Nobody is around. They're wearing overalls and motorcycle helmets and carrying guns._

_Kira's henchmen have found you again._

* * *

_tbc  
_

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading.


	59. Devotion

notes/warnings

+ warnings for somewhat graphic torture. but not much of it.

+ warning for actually updating in a reasonable period of time YAY.

+ warning for things actually starting to happen.

* * *

**Devotion**

_This time, they don't use nails. They use garden stakes._

_This time, they don't want to know anything. Your kidnap and torture is supposed to be a message for Near and L._

_This time there is nothing you can say or do to make them stop._

* * *

In the space of a week, they solve eight cases. Three serial killers, a ring of online terrorists, a jewel thief, a presidential kidnapping, and two underground black-market criminal organisations.

And then they have nine days left. Nine.

Raye comes to see him that evening. L has ordered Raye to keep an eye on a handful of people. Just in case.

L has also ordered him to keep this monitoring secret from both Mail and Rae.

"Wedgewood is attending an awards ceremony in London this weekend," Raye says, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. "She's rumored to be arriving Thursday evening."

"No news about Buzz?" L enquires, delicately dunking an entire strudel in his tea.

"No. Nothing about a man in a Transformers mask, either."

The mask is probably not significant, and the information is probably not pertinent. If new-Near had the strength to beat old Near, then he is likely to stay in the first world for a very long time.

Even so, it is good to keep an eye out.

_He waits for an insane amount of evidence before he acts, and he does not partner with legal institutions that implement any sort of death penalty._

He sounds like a fairytale character. He sounds like he probably never gets very much done. He also sounds like the sort of person L wanted to be, when he was still growing up.

He sounds like _that boy_, caring so much about everything and everyone, and so very, very clever.

L shakes his head. New-Near isn't the priority. On Thursday, Grianna Jones will arrive in this city.

"Thank you, Raye Penber. That is all I needed to know."

Slowly, quietly, in the confines of his own mind, L starts to form a plan.

* * *

Detective Inspector Charlotte King stands in the hall, outside the Chief's office. She's nervous, but her hands are steady.

She is a good officer, but that is not the same thing as a successful officer. A successful officer, upon waging a one-person campaign to have the Chief endorse a particular private detective, would not promptly reverse that advice just because it was the right thing to do.

A successful officer would protect their reputation, their career.

King prefers to protect people's lives.

Buzz was a mistake. A blip on the radar. L is back in full force, and the CEO-killer is still on the loose.

They need L. They need L more than she needs this job.

* * *

_The doctor is a good one. She doesn't criticize you, she doesn't look at you with pity, and she doesn't even tell you that you need to lose weight._

_She just shakes her head, says 'infected', and bandages your hand._

_You feel strange while she does it. Nobody ever touches you these days. You are repulsive and you are all alone._

_You still remember everything that happened, in exquisite, excruciating detail. You still remember the voice of the man with the helmet. You still remember being so frightened you wanted to be sick. You still remember the exact moment you felt the bones in your hands start snapping._

_And they didn't even want information from you. Things are different, now. Things are changing, and you are scared._

_The doctor's fingers are warm and gentle. You look away. You haven't been able to sleep since you were abducted. You haven't been able to do a lot of things, with a useless right hand and a barely-functional left hand. Dwayne has been following you around the house, cutting up your food and making your bed and helping you get dressed. And making fun of you, because Dwayne thinks everything is hilarious and oh god you hurt so much, all the time. There's still no chocolate anywhere. There's no escape._

_And yet, today is a good day._

_The doctor smiles some more and prescribes you several enormous-looking antibiotic pills. She tells you to stay out of trouble for a while and recommends a vitamin supplement._

"_Also," she says, "the guy you came in with is really cute."_

"_I know," you tell her._

_You probably don't have any right to say that, but she's already being unprofessional and nobody else can hear you._

_Besides, everyone knows you're in love with him. Everyone except for Dwayne, who is pathologically, irrevocably fucking dense. _

_The doctor sees you out, and pats you on the least-sore part of your shoulder. You are secretly glad that there's still one person left in the world who Near hasn't convinced to hate you. Yet._

_Matt is slouched in a chair in the waiting room, chin propped up in one hand, car keys dangling from the other. He's making faces at a pair of curly-haired toddlers playing on the other side of the room. There's a window right behind him, and sunlight on his hair, and he's just. Gorgeous._

_God, you hate your life._

_But not today. Not right now. Not from this second until he drops you back home and leaves again._

_You don't need anything special from him. All you need is to be near him._

_Right now, everything is okay._

* * *

"With all due respect sir, I'm surprised that you're not working on the CEO case."

Rester is standing stiffly in the centre of the room. There are wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes, and the set of his shoulders is particularly tense.

Nate will have to give him another day off, soon, or his judgment will become impaired.

Working with ordinary people is irritating. Sometimes Nate misses the orphanage. But not very much.

"The executive killer is almost interesting," he says, pushing a building block across the floor. "But it won't be my case for much longer. Expending energy on it would be wasteful."

The case would be _actually_ interesting, if the culprit were operating on a larger scale. But he's restricting himself to Dublin. He's unambitious and boring. And that's not the real point. The point is that L is presently statistically exceeding him. It's heartening to know that Nate's one-time role model isn't a _complete_ loser. The other real point is that Nate has other jobs. Other things to do. He likes to keep busy.

He is Buzz, and he exists to do jobs. To solve puzzles. To set the world right, back in order, back in line. To undo the work that Kira did.

Nate takes the wooden dolls from their storage cabinet under the red sofa. He's painting them to replace the finger puppets he had to leave in the first world.

"I understand," Rester says, even though he doesn't understand at all.

Rester never questions Nate. But he stays. He stayed when the others left. When that man - with his Optimus Prime mask and his oversized sweater and his mechanical voice and his team of _one_ – captured the Calestone Killer without any help from anyone, and the others defected to him like pawns in a chess game, Rester stayed.

He would be Nate's oldest friend, if Nate had friends. As things are, he's Nate's most reliable employee.

"Good," Nate replies.

The Rester-doll is finished. There are others. One for Gevanni, because he was a particularly useful employee. A red-haired doll with a wrinkled face for Quillsh Wammy. And then there are two identical dolls - one with green-brown hair and the other with yellow - that he always keeps right next to each other no matter what. And another in black and blue and white, still unfinished.

Nate is still deciding what sort of person L is. He works somewhat inefficiently, and yet at times he seems to operate with the capacity of two people.

So far, the only descriptor Nate is sure of is 'interesting'.

"That's good," he says, again.

The world is a fascinating place, and he wants to know everything there is to know.

* * *

L and Rae go off to do secret-best-buddy-totally-platonic-not-at-all-sleeping-together detective things, and Raye is left, as ever, with Mail.

He's gotten good at ignoring Mail during his free time. He can just turn on the television and put his feet up and eat cheap takeaway food and laugh along with the bad sitcoms and completely disregard the lurking sad figure sitting hunched by the window.

He can. But he doesn't always. Because, well, Mail is very nearly almost his friend.

"Hey," he says, gruffly. "Hey, you want a can of…some sort of soda?"

Raye doesn't actually keep track of what he's drinking. That was something Naomi had always done for him.

Also he's probably setting himself up to get punched here, but in all his grieving, through all those horrible days, he never really truly understood Mail.

Maybe he's still trying to.

Mail stares at him. He doesn't even frown. He just stares, blank and empty.

"No," he deadpans.

"Oh," Raye says. "Is there, uh, is there a point to it? The starving yourself? Are you trying to die again?"

"Shut the fuck up now," Mail tells him calmly, turning back to the window.

He has the picture in his lap. It's more damaged than Raye remembers, yellowed and frayed. Criss-crossed with a thousand soft creases and torn in several places from overuse. Raye wonders what Mail will do when it disintegrates completely.

"I think you could get better," Raye says. "If you wanted to."

"I don't want to," Mail tells him, without hesitation.

_He had the answer lined up in his head. He's already thought about this. He's already decided._

_How can someone throw away their whole life like this?_

"Yeah," Raye replies, heavily. "I figured."

He stays next to Mail for a little while, and then goes back to his sitcom.

* * *

The next case is an interesting one. A very specific mass murderer, who targets only rich business executives. It's a case that was originally given to Near.

Buzz. L should call him Buzz now.

That's how it is, sometimes. Police organisations will pick and choose the best private detective to help solve their most complicated crimes. There was a time when L was the only real choice. Now he has to compete.

But that's okay. It's good, in fact.

"We do nothing but solve cases all day," Rae says.

"You like solving cases," L points out calmly, without looking up from the documents strewn across his desk.

"In theory," Rae points out. "But it's kind of exhausting that we work hard and arrest hundreds of people, and the criminal population doesn't seem to be decreasing at _all_. Haven't you ever thought about that?"

L checks his watch. Twelve thirty. It has been almost eighteen minutes since they last had an argument.

"Do we have to discuss global criminology and ethics again?" he asks, quietly.

"Yes. Because you keep being _wrong_."

"I see," L says.

The CEO-killer is female, with long blonde hair. She's left plenty of DNA at the scenes of several of her crimes. The problem is that she doesn't seem to _be_ anyone. They cannot find a single person who matches her DNA.

"So," he murmurs. "What will you do when you are king? Emulate Light?"

"I'm _going_ to make the world a better place."

"By killing all the criminals."

"By doing your job a lot better than you're currently doing it. Besides, it's okay because I'm a Shinigami. It's our job to judge people."

No, that isn't true. Rae is being naive. Gods of death are meant to be impartial. The only one judging people is the hell-god. And Rae is maybe someone in hell, and maybe something terrible is going to happen, and L has never been in love with anybody before.

"I'm not sure that's okay at all," he replies, softly.

* * *

_Matt spends the entire drive talking about Jasmine._

_You don't interrupt._

* * *

Rae dreams every night. The same dream, always the same. It's comforting, in a way. Absolute. There can be no doubt this is some sort of test, and Rae is clearly passing.

Rae is just wonderful in general. It kind of hopes it actually gets to _meet_ this stupid kid at some point in the future.

Although it's not actually entirely sure what he looks like. He's just a concept. Maybe.

Doesn't matter.

Rae isn't scared of anything. It has L, and it isn't afraid. It has never been afraid, of course, but now it is especially unafraid.

_Look out the window._

_Ignore the boy._

_Change the world_.

Rae rolls over, and narrowly avoids smacking L in the face. They share a bed now. They're like a proper couple.

Everything is great.

Except, there's something wrong with the dream. Some tiny, niggling, uneasy detail, the identity of which still eludes Rae. At first, it had been convinced the window was a lie; too clear and perfect to exist. But in the dreams, it can see the faint reflection of its eyes in the glass.

And if it's not the window.

_The two chairs the shining thing the boy the boy the boy._

And there is nothing wrong with the shining thing.

Then it _must_ be the boy. He's wrong, somehow. Like he shouldn't exist. Like he's defying physics, or like he's wholly out of place.

And, well. What could be more out of place than stopping Rae from becoming king? So it makes sense that the boy is wrong. It has to be that the boy is wrong.

_You're wrong_ Rae thinks, smugly, to a boy who probably doesn't even exist.

Then it goes back to sleep.

* * *

L has been brighter lately. He's been eating desserts and solving cases and training hard, and Watari is so very relieved.

The world needs L. Everyone needs L. And so, L needs to be okay.

He is okay today. That is all Watari can ever hope for. One more day of saving people, one more tomorrow.

He briefly glances in the mirror, and adjusts his jacket minutely. Nobody here cares about how sharply he's dressed, especially not L. But Watari cares. It's the one thing he's kept, from back before he met L. From back when he was a famous inventor, living as an eccentric foreigner in Japan. From before the day that the local police brought him an expressionless, dead-eyed orphan because 'nobody else could handle him'.

"_But," the old inspector had said, "he is extremely intelligent, and you have no heir of your own."_

Perhaps, in slightly different circumstances, they could have grown together that way. As doyen and apprentice. As teacher and student.

As father and adopted son.

But they did not. Neither of them had the drive to bond with the other, and L's passion for justice far outweighed Watari's passion for things that worked.

In the end, they were what they have always been. Detective and handler.

"Watari?" L's voice crackles over the intercom.

All these years, a secure and untappable intercom system, and still they don't call each other by their names.

"Yes, L?"

Watari hopes he wants food. He has a new coffee cake recipe that he's been interested in testing out.

"Are you alone?"

This isn't about cake, then. Watari scans the room carefully. No spies, no bugs, no lurking skeleton monsters.

"Yes."

"I want you to send a tape to one of the national television stations."

A tape. Tapes are practically defunct in this day and age. L must be worried about being hacked.

"And make arrangements to pay them any money that they require in order to air the tape contents at eight o'clock on Thursday evening."

"Understood," Watari says, even though he never, ever understands.

Not since they died. He empathises with L, but he cannot understand. Detective and handler. That is all. Watari glances at the mirror again. His hair is getting redder, even as L's grows more grey. Only stress makes people age, in this second world.

"And please keep this a secret from the others," L continues.

"Also understood. Is there anything else?"

L pauses for a moment.

"Could you bring me cake?" he asks, quietly. "Or maybe coffee?"

Watari smiles.

"Yes," he replies.

* * *

If L goes alone. If nobody else comes. If he goes in disguise, by many vehicles so that he cannot be traced, then nobody else will be hurt.

He needs to talk to Grianna Jones one more time. He needs to know everything that she knows. And if possible, he needs to confront the hell-god.

He has dedicated his life to saving people he barely knows. He is not about to let someone he loves slip away from him without putting up a damn good fight.

Because he knows. The hell-god is everywhere. In the way people forget. In the way Rae is no longer bothered by its own illness. In the way the library locked him out, and the way thousands of people died without anyone dying at all. He knows of the hell-god, and he will not give up.

Not yet. Not until it's over.

So, on Friday, he will go to a place. And everyone in the United Kingdom will know he'll be there, somewhere in the crowd. And people will want to see the famous detective, so there will _be_ a crowd, and perhaps nobody will notice him at all.

Perhaps. It's a flimsy plan, but he doesn't have anything else.

There's no point in warning the others. Mail may go running to Rae if he decides it's a good idea. And Raye is of no possible help. Besides, L already sent Raye instructions earlier in the week. Important instructions, not for right now, but for always.

_If anything happens to me, please take care of Mail_.

If anything happens to Mail, it will be L's fault. Even if L isn't around. Even if L is _dead _and has been dead for many years, it will still be his fault. Mail is his son, and the one person he must always look after.

And if anything happens to Rae, then that will be L's fault, too.

It's a flimsy plan, but he will undertake it gladly.

* * *

Mail finds a permanent marker, and is inspired by it. He writes Mello's name on the wall of his room, over and over, a thousand times.

_I hope you're okay, doll._

In a single night, he fills all the white space with _Mihael _and _Keehl_. He also tries to copy Matsuda's precious drawing onto the back of his door, but fails miserably.

_Oh god, I'm sorry_.

_You deserve better than this_.

_You deserve better than to be dead, and have nobody remember._

He steals a ladder from the storeroom and writes across the ceiling. He doesn't stop when his neck starts aching. He doesn't stop when night falls and the room grows dark. He doesn't stop when Raye fuckin' Penber knocks on the door and yammers something unimportant about vindaloo and tea.

He never wants to stop.

Not stopping is the only peace he ever gets. Finding some new way to remember Mello is the only time the inside of his mind stops screaming.

Nothing will ever be enough, and Mello will never ever come back, and Mail will never be okay.

Mail accidentally smears a letter and curses loudly.

_I'm so sorry, doll. I'm sorry._

* * *

L solves the CEO case and considers another. Members of a particular parish keep disappearing. One every month. No evidence. No bodies. The police are stumped.

It's Thursday morning. L accepts the case. The church is located in Dundee, it's reasonable that L would want a standing surveillance, and Rae can't fly very fast. It's the perfect excuse. If L is lucky, Rae will never know that he put himself in a dangerous situation in order to meet a supermodel.

Of course, if he isn't lucky, then he'll be captured or dead.

Rae will probably be angry, if anything happens to him.

Probably.

Rae probably cares for him, at least a little bit.

L isn't really convinced of that, though. And it doesn't matter. He doesn't really need to be loved. He just needs to protect the people he loves. Which reminds him, he hasn't heard from Mail in almost a day.

L's hand hovers over the intercom button. Maybe he's worrying too much, but he only has four people left in the whole world and he needs to look after all of them. And also everyone else in the world.

God, he's so tired.

"Hey, I passed through Mail's room on the way here," Rae says, appearing unceremoniously by L's side. "He's alive and stuff. If you were wondering."

L grins automatically, and leans against the edge of Rae's hip. It isn't comfortable, but it is comforting, somehow.

"Thank you," he replies.

He doesn't ask if Mail is okay. Mail hasn't been okay since he died.

"I'm bored," Rae announces, resting one hand on top of L's head.

"I'm investigating a new case," L says. "I haven't agreed to it yet. I'll let you know."

"Okay."

Rae doesn't question it. Of course Rae doesn't question it. It isn't at all a strange thing to say. This is a case like any other, and Rae has no reason to suspect a diversion.

"Was Mail destroying anything particularly valuable?" L asks, conversationally.

"Were you attached to the whiteness of the walls?"

"Not really," L says. "I'm glad he's found something to do."

"Good point," Rae replies. "What's he going to do if you die, anyway? He'll have nothing to occupy himself at all. And I understand he has no plans to die again. I doubt he loves you enough to follow you. Theoretically speaking."

It's a fair point. Mail has dismissed dying as pointless, and he'll probably stay here forever, where he's most comfortable.

"Maybe I won't die, either."

"Maybe," Rae replies, grinning.

* * *

Of course, all of that is a lie. If L dies, he'll go to hell. Even if Mail follows him to hell, they won't be together.

But that isn't the point. The point is this: Mail may never die again.

The other, unrelated point is that Rae has no intention of ever ever letting L die ever.

_Oh._

_Fuck_.

It's okay, though. Everything is okay. They are together and everything is fine.

* * *

"It's got to be the church doing it," Rae says, leaning over L's shoulder. "Someone is either killing or abducting those people."

"Those are my suspicions, as well," L agrees.

Rae pokes him, right up under his ribs.

"How suspicious are you?" it asks, almost affectionately.

L chews on his thumb.

"Eleven percent," he replies.

"You definitely just made that number up."

L glances up from the computer screen.

"How suspicious are _you_, then?"

"Suspicious enough," Rae tells him.

It's strange, being in love. He's working on a case, the same thing he's done every day of his life since his mother died, but the room is warmer and he feels happy and content on some primitive, animalistic level.

Rae is still touching his side.

"The church has mass every night at eight o'clock," L murmurs. "Will you go and run surveillance for me?"

He doesn't hold his breath. He doesn't do anything suspicious at all. He just waits.

"Sure," Rae answers.

* * *

Rae does a little research of its own. L might be Rae's human, but he is still _only_ human and Rae is the best at everything so it makes sense that Rae wouldn't just take L's word for things.

Ha!

The church is suspending its eight o'clock mass tonight in order to help the police with their investigations.

See? _See_? This is why L needs Rae around.

Rae will go tomorrow, instead.

* * *

Mary Samuels props her head up in her hand, and plays the tape one more time. She's fascinated by the whole thing. By the message. By everything.

"_This is a private message for Jacinta Wedgewood, from the detective known as L. Message is as follows. _

_We need to talk, Miss Wedgewood. There is something that we need to discuss, something that nobody else in the second world understands. _

_Tomorrow is Friday. Please meet me at midday. I will be at the very first place you ever posed for professional photographs. I will be with someone you will recognize. _

_This matter is extremely important, Miss Wedgewood. Please come if you possibly can. I will expect you to be in disguise. You have my most sincere regards. _

_End Message."_

"Are we really going to play it?" Huck wonders, out loud. "I mean, we're a respectable channel. The sponsors won't be happy if we do something like this."

"Do you think it's really L?" Cheryl asks.

"If it's really L, then he's a lot stupider than the man I thought he was," Mary replies, derisively. "Everyone who knows Wedgewood knows where she first posed for shots. The foyer of the art gallery on Suffolk Road."

"And he's considered an enemy by most of the major crime organisations," Cheryl adds. "If he goes, he might be killed!"

"I wonder if he's in love with her?" Huck says, dreamily.

Huck sometimes has trouble grasping serious situations.

"Irrelevant and unlikely," Mary snaps.

"Do we play the tape?" Cheryl asks. "Because our crew are going to want an answer real soon. It's already a quarter to eight."

Mary considers this. The message is going to get them viewers. And eight million pounds for a single advertisement is lucrative in this day and age.

"Of course," she says, firmly.

_Heaven help you, Mister L. I hope you know what you're doing._

* * *

Rae manages to make itself scarce for the rest of the day and, by five-to-eight, L can only hope that it is safely in Dundee and not about to make his life horribly difficult.

In five minutes time, his plea to Grianna Jones will be broadcasted around the country. And then tomorrow, he will go out and meet her. He would really like Rae to be absent for both of those things. It's really hard to protect someone when they keep trying to protect _you_.

L fidgets with his dessert fork. Parts of being in love are painfully familiar. Sometimes he still feels like he's desperately trying to chain Matsuda to the table, or frantically trying to guide Naomi out of Takada's clutches. Romance is romance, but devotion and the desire to defend, these things are _constant_.

And he doesn't even really know what he's fighting. He doesn't know for sure that Rae is in hell. He still doesn't know anything.

Even if he were to use the notebook, who would he choose? He cannot sacrifice another human for Rae's sake. He is not about to become Light. And he does not dare kill as a punishment. He isn't prepared to venture one step down that slippery slope.

So what is left? Kill someone who doesn't deserve to die? Who somehow needs to die?

How is L possibly supposed to know that? He is not god, and he has no right to judge people.

What other options are there? Kill Light? Declare him completely inhuman, and his murder categorically morally acceptable, and write his name in the notebook?

No.

Absolutely not. Never. Not even to save his own life. It would be better to let Light win again than to destroy him by becoming his mirror image.

L's world suddenly goes dark, and somebody says 'hey'.

L prises the bony hands from his face, cold fear rising up in his chest.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, tensely. "You're supposed to be in Dundee."

"Not today. There's no mass tonight. I'll go later tonight."

Okay, everything is still fine. Rae will leave soon, so all L has to do is stop Rae from watching television. Or talking to anyone else in the building.

He can do this.

"Are you okay?" Rae asks, peering at him with chocolate-coloured eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," L replies. "Everything is fine."

_Everything is better than it ever was before._

_I hope I don't die._

_I want to stay with you_.

"Okay," Rae replies. "Let's watch the news."

L freezes. Rae sounds casual. Maybe it knows, but maybe it doesn't.

"Wait," he says, quickly. But not _too_ quickly. "I've been thinking. I want to talk to you about Kira."

"Again?"

"Yeah. I've been...trying to figure things out."

L grapples for the correct words, the words that will open up this age-old, incredibly useful argument and distract Rae from the television and give them both something to do all night that doesn't involve anyone else.

"Okay," Rae says conversationally, and reaches for the television. "After-"

L definitely does not panic.

"Listen," he says loudly. "I wanted to say that I agree with you. With what you're going to do once you're king. Killing the criminals. I've decided that it's okay."

Actually, he may have panicked just a little bit.

"Because…because you're a Shinigami. It isn't the place of humans to judge Shinigami."

Rae stares at him, hand falling back to its side. It stays silent.

L is babbling, speaking in half-truths, saying things he doesn't mean. They're running out of time and he _needs_ to find the hell-god and he's never ever loved anyone before.

"I trust you," L finishes, with absolutely honesty. "You're not like Light. I trust you."

Rae still doesn't move.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ I'm going to use this space to just touch on a subject that's come up in reviews a few times. Namely, **Aging In The Afterlife**. Essentially, everyone in the second world gravitates towards being young adults. This means that old people tend to get younger in their looks, while children and babies can still exist and even be born into the second world, but they will grow up more quickly than usual. Only the very ill or the chronically stressed tend to age beyond 'young adult' in looks. Hope that helps.

+ also thank you all for being awesome and wonderful and reading this fic despite my slow-ass updates and my inability to reply to any of your awesome reviews. (I am working on this I SWEAR).

+ just a note to say I've updated my profile somewhat, and put in actual links and stuff. If there's anything that should be there that I haven't included, please please please let me know. I lost the links to some of the wonderful fanficart when I went through my bad period. /worst wannabe author ever.

+ I am presently at a stage of my life where I feel up to talking to people on the internet. so, you are welcome to hit up my inbox if you want.


	60. New

notes/warnings

+ just a heads up - this chapter is basically a whole lot of little things in the process of happening. it doesn't really have the stand-alone feeling that I try to aim for, but I'm happy with it anyway.

+ warning for language, mostly.

* * *

**New**

_You._

_You what?_

_You._

_I did it._

_For._

_People like you._

L is kind of half-smiling, like his tiny brain can't actually comprehend the magnitude of what he's just said.

What has he just said? If Rae thinks about it logically – and Rae is _always_ logical – then it's just a natural progression for all the things he's said ever since Rae found out his pathetic little charade. He's been falling steadily. And he's not even admitting defeat. He's changed the argument. He's trying to find a compromise.

What does it mean to have a trophy that voluntarily agrees with you? There's no fight. No convincing. No challenge and no struggle. There is only winning, for ever and ever.

But. Kira.

L puts one hand on Rae's sternum.

"That's what matters, right?" he says, quietly. "Is Light really important if I agree with _you_?"

Kira.

_Light is always important._

_Was always important._

And, well. They're arguing about a principle. They're arguing about theory. But what L just said is actual and real and Rae could _rule the world with him_.

_I did it for people like you._

_For you. Always._

Rae has never felt like this before. This tremendous sense of fulfillment, of being reciprocated on the most basic of levels. A whole future starts to unfold before its eyes, of L and justice and a world without criminals and a kingdom the size of the universe and _always winning always always_.

Light never has to come back. He's practically just a concept. But Rae will live forever.

L is still looking worn out and wary, hand still on the centre of Rae's chest like he can feel a heart that doesn't exist, has never existed.

_It's still okay. You love me more than I.._.

The world does not end, so much as it begins. Is better than ever before. Rae can have everything that Rae ever wanted.

L is still waiting.

"Yeah," Rae says, smoothly, and with only the smallest and least-noticeable of mid-syllable squeaks. "Yeah. That's what matters."

_I never did it._

* * *

Mail turns to Raye.

"Hey," he says. "Did you just see the skeleton thing shove L into his bedroom and close the door behind them?"

"Absolutely not," Raye replies, putting his hands over his eyes. "I see nothing. I hear nothing. The fact that I happen to be replying just after you spoke is purely random. Nothing is happening."

"Oh good," Mail replies, distantly.

* * *

L wakes when Rae does, at three in the morning.

He feels simultaneously good and kind of horrible. He just lied to Rae, who is probably the love of his life, in order to manipulate it into doing what he wanted.

He is, essentially, turning into Light.

Of course, he kind of lied out of a combination of fear and genuine concern for Rae's well-being, rather than a combination of narcissism and genuine drive to kill roughly the entire population of the earth in one sitting. So there's that.

And besides, he really does love Rae.

"I'm going to Dundee. Stay safe."

Bony fingers card through his hair, just once, and then Rae is gone.

L smiles at the empty darkness, and goes back to sleep. In the morning he will go to see Grianna Jones.

* * *

There is nothing special about Bradley Thornber. He's five foot eleven, with curly hair and a decent aim. He likes small guns. He died two months ago. He's never had sex, because there have always been more interesting things to do.

Things like getting a visa, and finding somewhere that he can be okay. Where he can sleep at night without fear, without gunfire in the streets.

He's starting to think that somewhere doesn't exist.

The phone rings. It's way the fuck too early. Something must be going down.

It's the boss. The big boss. He's laughing as he speaks, like all of this is funny. The boss inherited his position from his grandmother. He's never had a hard day in his life.

"Thornber. I've got a job for you. Me and some of my…peers have a little bet going. The person to kill the detective L wins."

Thornber fists one hand against the desk. Fuck this. Fuck these stupid rich brainless assholes.

He doesn't like L. L is a scary force, another long arm of the police, a trap waiting to snare people like him. L is known for catching murderers and thieves, but he doesn't seem to do anything about the traffickers and the crime lords. If the criminals aren't hurting rich white people, nobody gives a shit.

Thornber doesn't want this life, but he does what he has to.

"You want me to go to the art gallery?"

"At midday. If you manage to kill him, I'll raise your pay."

The boss hates to lose. He'll have every marksman in his employment at that art gallery tomorrow. Thornber doesn't have much of a chance of actually killing L.

But he doesn't want to be dead, either. And dead is what happens to anyone who disobeys the boss.

"I'll be there, sir," he replies.

* * *

L wears his old-man mask, the same one he wore the first time he met Grianna Jones.

Or the first time he _remembers_ meeting Grianna Jones, anyway. Perhaps they have met before. Back when he didn't care about people's names unless they were related to a case.

He has changed so much. Some days he can hardly recognize himself. But he generally doesn't care.

Generally.

He doesn't have many days left. He doesn't have many days until Rae maybe disappears forever. But he can do his best to make sure Rae will be okay after that time.

L pulls on his bullet-proof vest and a hooded grey shirt. Too many people in the world know who he is. Too many people have seen him around crime scenes. He cannot risk wearing exactly the same clothes all of the time, no matter how much he wants to. He will have to function without that extra seventeen percent.

Or was it fourteen percent?

He takes a knife. He doesn't take a gun. He isn't about to open fire in a crowded foyer, no matter what happens. L tucks the knife into his sleeve, pulls on his only pair of shoes – cheap sneakers with the soles cut out – and heads down the hall.

He'll drive himself. Nobody else is coming. Nobody must ever be able to trace him back to this place, filled with all his precious people.

"Hi," Mail deadpans, emerging suddenly from a door that definitely doesn't lead to a room and possibly leads to a closet. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Going to meet an informant," L says, briskly. Mail won't stop him. Mail has never stopped him from doing anything.

"You mean Jacinta Wedgewood?" Raye says, emerging from a different door.

_An ambush. _

_Huh_.

Of course. They've seen the news. What was he expecting?

"Can you explain to me how that's not horrifically fucking dangerous?" Raye continues.

"You have been spending too much time with Mail," L comments.

"Looks like I'll have to get used to that, since you're about to get yourself shot and my only other colleague is a fucking _god of death_.

L sighs.

"I have to do this," he says, quietly.

"Nope," Raye replies.

"Really?" Mail asks.

"Really. I have to protect Rae the best that I can. And Wedgewood is the only person I know who has also encountered a Shinigami and a death note."

He can tell them that much. He cannot tell them of the hell-god, of course.

"Of _course_ this is about Rae," Raye groans. "Isn't there a better way to meet this woman?"

"She's as rich as I am," L says. "And she has no regard for the law. She is almost impossible to trace, so I have to plead with her."

"Will she help?" Mail asks, softly.

"I hope so," L replies. "But regardless, I have to try."

Raye rolls his eyes.

"You geniuses should just never ever love anyone ever," he announces. "You keep your fucking phone on, damnit. And call in every five minutes."

"I can't do that," L reasons. "My whole disguise rests on the fact that the room will be crowded and _everyone_ will be looking for L. L has minders, so I will go alone. L will be contacting people, so I won't do that. L will blend in. I'll be a hobbling little old man."

Raye and Mail glance at each other. It's kind of heartening to see them organizing an intervention together. It's nice that they're getting along.

Mail shakes his head, ever so slightly. Of course. Mail will support L, because L is doing this for someone that he loves.

"You had better fuckin' stay safe," Mail growls.

"Yes," L agrees. "Thank you."

And then, with their grudging permission, he leaves.

* * *

Raye watches L go. He's annoying and socially inept and grubby and he has _really_ weird romantic tastes, but he's still the most important thing in their world.

They're all here because of L's reputation. They have money because of him. They have purpose because of him.

Outside, the gutters are overflowing and the pavement is slick with spent hail. It never stops raining.

"Naomi would have been able to stop him," Raye mutters, and walks away before Mail can answer.

* * *

"What will we do, sir?" Rester asks. They're driving home from interviewing a few suspects. All of them had watertight alibis, but the case isn't overly important and Nate isn't worried.

If he wanted, he could make it to the art gallery by midday. The room will be filled with L's supporters and L's foes. Nate's presence could help stack the odds in his favour.

But it would be a foolish venture, and Nate is not here to compensate the whimsies of aging detectives.

"We'll go back to the headquarters," Nate replies. "I want to keep working on this case."

* * *

Thornber slides a gun into each pocket, and straps a third under his shirt. He is always prepared. Always.

He catches the bus to Suffolk, and watches the other passengers mull and mingle around him. There are two Welcomers hanging around the Suffolk interchange, which means there must be a lot of new people coming through here.

Ever since he arrived in the second world, Thornber always dreamed of being a Welcomer. Of spending his days standing around bus stops and railway stations and watching the newly dead appear. Of integrating people into the new world, calming the frightened and guiding the lost. Of ushering people to the stopover houses and helping them reunite with family and friends.

One day. If he ever gets away from the boss, he's going to do just that.

But today, he's going to try to kill L.

* * *

"What will we do, sir?" Halle asks.

She's been dead barely a week. They're still getting their bearings. They've got a secure building, but they're still a little light on furniture.

They've taken three cases in the past three days, and all of them are exhausted. The art gallery is a fair drive from here. They'll barely make it by midday.

Near raises his head. Possibly he smiles. She'll never know.

"The art gallery will be filled with people," he deadpans. "If we go, we may be able to save somebody."

There's an unpleasant set to his shoulders and neck. He's really tired. He's barely able to hold his head up.

The heavy Transformers mask probably doesn't help.

"I'll get a car," she says.

* * *

"Whatcha looking at?"

L is busy with some sort of case. To be honest, Jas hasn't been paying him much attention. She's been watching Keehl, gauging how he responds to things, and deciding her next move. She needs to choose every word carefully. The notebook reads her. Is a part of her. She cannot make a single mistake.

She closes the notebook daintily, and glares at Ryuk.

"I thought you were going to stay in the third world," she asks, irritably.

She could warp space and avoid him altogether, of course, but she's not supposed to do that. She's supposed to be at least somewhat available to the other Shinigami.

Even though they're not like her. No-one is like her. She is all alone. Has always been alone.

At least until Keehl decides to be with her.

Not too long now.

"Are you staring at the pretty blonde guy, again?"

"No," Jas snaps, losing her patience completely. "Go away."

* * *

The building is going to be crowded, and they have no intelligence on what L looks like or who he associates with. The odds aren't good. Thornber knows the odds aren't good. But if the boss thinks he hasn't tried his damndest to murder L, then he'll be executed. Painfully and abruptly.

Thornber really wants to live.

There's one way to make sure L dies, and that's to get rid of the whole building. And dozens, maybe hundreds, of innocent people.

Thornber touches his back pocket. The bomb is small and flat and expertly made. It's got just enough power to bring down a large building without doing too much damage to the surroundings.

He hopes he won't have to use it.

* * *

It's a cult.

It's a goddamned cult. That's where the people are going. The church is running as a cover for a full-blown underground cult, and they're recruiting on a monthly basis.

God, people are pathetic.

Or, well, _most_ people are pathetic.

Rae is trying not to think about L. Trying to ignore the quiet, excited little spark in the stomach it doesn't technically have.

_L is…_

_We could…_

_Forever_.

Kira is the price though, isn't he? Rae knows. In a way, it feels like it has been railroaded into this. It was so convinced that L was safe, because he was so in love. Is so in love. L shouldn't be demanding fucking _anything_, and Rae hates him.

But.

_Oh my god what am I even thinking._

_What._

_What._

And then Rae forcibly turns its attention back to the church. The pews are ancient and cracking in places. The ceiling is high, and the stained glass windows are faded. There are two older women sitting right next to Rae, holding hands and murmuring quietly to each other.

"And as god is everywhere," the preacher continues, "so god is in each of us. And in some of us, he manifests. For those who truly believe, there will be enlightenment. I am god's representative, and so I am god. If you allow me to guide your life, you will be eternally rewarded."

The sermon has surpassed religious and entered the realms insanity. Of course, religion is sort of like insanity anyway. But worshipping invisible nonexistent benevolent omniscient narcisstic sky-beings is a little better than worshipping actual other people.

_Wait._

Rae shakes its head, again, pushing away the unpleasant, dissonant thoughts. The sermon is well-attended. The parishioners are making donations into a tin box. The preachers name is Jade Atwell. The members of the cult are living in the belly of the church, packed into the basements, performing rituals and building weapons. Rae doesn't really need to know what motivates a person like this.

There is enough evidence. L needs to send in the police.

One of the little old ladies drops her purse, scattering her belongings all over the floor. As she bends over, Rae spies something interesting tucked into her shirt.

Her ID card.

Her name is Gladys White. _Detective Inspector _Gladys White.

The police are already here.

But she hasn't figured it out, obviously. She's still here, investigating, scrounging for enough evidence to make an arrests. More people will be brainwashed and hurt and abused by the time she's figured it out. The justice system is inept and useless and flawed.

_See, this is why the world needs Kira._

_No, this is why the world needs me. Needs Rae. Rae is enough._

There's no argument that Rae is currently more powerful and able than the old Kira ever was. Rae is a god of death, after all.

The other little old lady checks her phone. Rae thinks her name is Sandra. She skims her news feed, hovering over some story about L apparently going to the Suffolk Street art gallery. The preacher is still talking, and his voice is so monotonous and boring that Rae wonders how anyone ever could have…

Wait, what. L is _in the fucking news_?

L is going to a place where everyone knows he is going to be?

How?

What?

_Holy motherfucking shit_.

L is in danger. L is in danger – the fucking fucking liar fucking asshole - and Rae just turns and leaves, the congregation be damned.

It's almost midday. There isn't _any_ time.

* * *

There are police officers gathered outside of the art gallery. One of them stops L as he tries to get through the doors.

"It's dangerous in there, grandpa," she warns. "You should stay out here."

She's annoyed. She should be more than annoyed. She should be fucking terrified. There are going to be dozens of L's enemies in that building, and most of them won't give a damn about who gets hurt.

There are exactly twelve police officers here. It won't be enough.

"My son is already inside," L croaks. "We want to see Mr L."

"Nobody's going to see L," she snaps. "L probably isn't even here. It's just some sort of stupid detective thing. Why would he ever go to a place where he's said he's going to be? He's an enigma."

"My son is still inside," L points out, sounding unconvinced, and she lets him go.

Inside, the foyer is impossibly crowded. People are jammed in, shoulder-to-shoulder. Some of them are wearing shirts emblazoned with the letter L. Some of them are dressed in Grianna's latest fashion style. Some of them are carrying children.

He and Grianna Jones are both celebrities, but neither of them are heroes.

People are going to be hurt tonight, unless he is very, very careful.

L elbows his way through the crowd, and takes note of the people he's passing. Grianna Jones is exactly six feet tall, so he glances at every person and their shoes to help narrow down his search.

But plenty of people are six feet tall. There isn't a lot that L can do. Grianna has to find him, or this whole venture is useless.

If he reveals himself, he will almost certainly be killed.

He pushes past a tall man with a stethoscope around his neck, a teenage boy with a toddler in each arm, and a large and well-dressed woman, who is talking about how 'L will be exactly the opposite of what anyone expects'.

She turns to him after he's passed her.

"Are you L?" she demands. Several people turn and stare at them.

"I wish," L replies, wistfully, rubbing his hands together. He is nothing but a bemused little old man, here to see his childhood hero.

She eyes him skeptically.

"It's just that you are totally different from what I thought he'd be," she explains. "And I'm expecting him to be totally different to what I thought he'd be. So it makes sense that you'd be him. After all, he's really clever, and you're all incompetent-looking."

"I'm flattered," L replies. "Seriously. L is awesome I'd like to be L."

She tips her head to one side.

"No, I was expecting L to be arrogant," she says, after a moment. "So if you were L, you wouldn't really be arrogant and you'd never have said that. You can't be him."

She rushes off to accost someone else. L smiles to himself. It's sort of fascinating, watching ordinary people attempt to deduce the complicated minds of geniuses. As long as nobody gets hurt, of course.

If anyone is hurt today, it will be his fault.

He pushes past a few more people and makes it to the other side of the room, away from the door, and leans on the wall just under the fire alarm. An ancient-looking man is hunched up next to him. He looks too old and tired to be much trouble, but L cannot be certain.

The old must have died old, for nobody grows old here. In this place, the old become young. It's rumoured that when people first realized this, they thought the second world was heaven.

But it isn't. It's just an ordinary world, only mildly better than the first world.

Nobody loved L in the first world.

A skinny blonde girl wanders past. She's carrying a suspicious-looking object in her back pocket. L managers to discreetly remove it once her back is turned.

She doesn't notice. He's gotten better at this since the Kira case. He was trained well in the art of theft.

Damn, he misses Wedy.

The object turns out to be a crude, homemade bomb. It's basic enough that L can quietly disarm it and slip it into his knapsack without anyone noticing. But it's worrying, at the same time. People with guns is one thing – they are perhaps only looking to kill one or two individuals – but people with bombs is pure terrorism. Many of the people in this building are innocent civilians.

And even those who are not innocent deserve a chance to live.

This is getting grossly, drastically out of hand. L needs to start paying more attention. He gazes around the room, scanning for any other explosives.

On the other side of him is a young-looking Italian man. He doesn't appear to be carrying anything suspicious, but he has some interesting callouses on his hands. L has never seen callouses like that on anyone who wasn't a counterfeiter.

_It appears that the entire criminal population of London is here today._

L checks his watch. Five past twelve. If Grianna Jones were here, she would come to him. She would recognize him from the scene of Takada's murder. He's wearing the same mask. And yet, nobody has approached him.

He wants to wait another few minutes. Just in case. For Rae's sake.

* * *

The maid calls at midday.

"Package arrived for you from Viktor," she announces. "More guns."

Grianna grins, and wanders over to the window. This hotel room is large and ugly and terribly expensive. While she's being Jacinta Wedgewood, she has to keep up appearances.

In truth, she no longer cares about irrelevant things like that. All she cares about is finding the god of hell.

"I only ordered them yesterday," she replies, amused.

"Well, you know he'd do anything for you," the maid chirps. She's more of a caretaker than a maid. She's managing one of Grianna's permanent properties in Kentucky. She usually does a fairly good job.

"That's why he's my favourite ex-husband," Grianna says, knowingly.

To be honest, he'd probably come with her if he knew what she was doing. But what she's doing is dangerous, and Viktor is clumsy and slow-witted and would only make things difficult.

Grianna Jones works alone.

Grianna Jones also has a plan.

"So you're not going to the art gallery then, ma'am?" the maid queries. "To meet that detective?"

"No, I'm not," Grianna replies. "I'm going to stay right here until the awards ceremony."

"Fair enough," the maid replies.

* * *

After another few moments, the old man standing to L's right leans towards him. L doesn't flinch. He's ninety-one percent certain that the man isn't carrying any weapons or explosives. Whatever he's about to do is unlikely to be important.

L smiles anyway. He doesn't want to seem suspicious.

"So," the man wheezes. "We never met, and we never had this conversation. But let's suppose you and I are standing here for the same reason."

L blinks. Okay. Perhaps not unimportant.

"Let's also suppose," he continues, in an odd and raspy voice, "that neither of us want this building to be detonated. In fact, in this totally hypothetical situation, let's assume neither of us want anyone dead and therefore both of us are interested in removing weapons of mass death from the other patrons of this fine establishment."

Ah. L might not be as discrete at disarming bombs as he'd presumed, then.

"Who are you?" he asks, voice non-committal and neutral.

"Oh, I'm just a frail old man like yourself," he replies. "But let's say that the woman who spoke to you earlier is carrying something suspicious in her handbag."

L follows his gaze. Yes, okay. She definitely is.

"Let's assume that I have…friends who could take that off her, but I've been watching her and her reflexes are excellent."

"I spoke to her earlier," L whispers. "She may not be as wary if I approach her."

"Then do it," the man replies. "I don't want anybody to die today."

He's wearing an extremely well-made mask. L hadn't noticed until now. There is an excellent chance that this man is neither frail nor old.

"Understood," L replies, and goes.

* * *

Thornber is getting twitchy. There are too many people in here. The supermodel doesn't seem to be showing up. He can't find L.

He can't let the boss down. He just can't. He doesn't want to kill people, but.

_But_.

Thornber has never been good with moral dilemmas.

* * *

L disarms the women without any trouble, and pickpockets another few explosives on his way back to the wall.

And still Grianna Jones doesn't show up.

Part of being a successful detective is knowing when to give up.

L needs to get everyone out of the building. There are two ways to do this. He could tell everyone that Grianna Jones isn't coming, but that would be make him suspiciously likely to be L. Or he could sound the alarm.

But the thing is, if the alarm goes off, people may panic. And in the panic, things may go horribly wrong. As long as some people in the room are carrying explosives, the chances of things going horribly wrong are multiplied tenfold. But the more explosives L acquires, the greater chance he has of being caught. He cannot go on like this forever. He cannot hope to disarm the whole room.

What they need is a message from Grianna Jones. Announcing the fact that she isn't coming. That will cause people to leave without pandemonium.

Yes.

L pulls out his phone and quietly contacts Mail.

"_I need a convincing synthesis of the voice of Jacinta Wedgewood_," he types. _"This is urgent. The audio needs to say 'I am sorry, but I will not be coming', or something to that effect."_

He sends the message, keeping one eye on the old man standing against the wall. Judging by their last interaction, he is both clever and observant. L wonders who he is. His stature is too tall for Near –

Or more correctly, his stature is too tall for _old_ Near. He could be new Near. He could be a Wammy's orphan. He could be someone else entirely.

It doesn't matter. L doesn't need other detectives, or other geniuses. He has Rae.

A curly-haired man crosses the room briskly, with an intent expression on his face. L watches him carefully as he approaches the far wall. There is a slight bulge in his back pocket, almost completely hidden to the untrained eye.

No. This is dangerous. And there isn't time to reach him, there isn't time to do anything except-

"Excuse me," the curly-haired man mutters to the other detective, and then he reaches out and pulls the fire alarm.

* * *

To add fear to confusion, Thornber puts on a falsetto voice and yells '_oh my god he's got a bomb'_ at the top of his lungs. People start screaming. Everyone stampedes towards the exit. He jumps over the stair rail and onto the third step, so that everyone can see him.

"Anybody takes out a weapon," he yells, in his ordinary voice, "and I'll kill them from here."

He can't go back empty-handed. He can't go back without at least detonating the bomb. He might as well get everyone else out alive.

The crowd files out slowly and awkwardly, pushing and shoving at each other. Some people have children with them. He's never been a hero before.

Whatever. He doesn't want to kill people. He wants to be a Welcomer, _damnit_. He wants to do something good in the world.

Everyone gets out alive. Nobody starts shooting.

Everybody lives.

Almost everybody.

When he's reasonably sure everyone is safely outside, Thornber takes the explosive out of his pocket and pulls the pin.

He hopes the third world is a better place.

* * *

Rae catches a train and several buses, and makes it back to London in record time, for a Shinigami that can barely fly.

Its mind is a steady stream of _nononofucknoohgodnopleasebeo kay_ that drowns out all its confused thoughts from before. Nothing matters, except that L lives to regret his own ridiculous fucking stupidity and they can reconcile and be together and everything will be okay.

_Oh please_.

This is the abrupt downside of loving such an ordinary person. Ordinary people can die.

_No no no no no no_.

L cannot ever die. He'll go to hell and he _supports_ Rae and Rae wants everything, fucking damnit.

Okay, there's the art gallery, at the end of the street. It's okay. Everything looks okay. And Rae would definitely be able to tell if L was dead, right?

Probably not.

Rae has plans though. Rae has plans and so L can't die.

_Please_.

Rae passes another building, walking as fast as it possibly can. It doesn't go on the road. It doesn't want to take any chances with whether or not it can avoid cars at this point.

It's almost there. A few more steps.

And then the art gallery explodes.

* * *

Everyone evacuates to a grassy hill, a safe distance away from the building. Near counts the group twice, to make sure everyone is accounted for. Then they go in the other direction, towards the city. Nobody notices. The other masked man - the bomb-retrieving man - also splits off from the group, heading in the direction of the nearby public library.

"I wonder who he was," Halle says, thoughtfully.

"Do you think he was the real L, maybe? Or some sort of wannabe?" Gevanni asks. Halle is slightly smarter than him, slighter faster than him, and Near's uncontested favourite.

But this Near isn't like the old Near. He might play favourites, but he cares about both of them. Gevanni never feels underappreciated, and that's the most important thing.

He doesn't regret leaving the old Near at all.

"I don't know," Near rasps. "Judging by the way he was looking around the room, I'd guess he had only one working eye. That won't help us find him in the future, but I doubt we'll need to."

Near often speaks at length. He's thoughtful and considerate. People matter to him. He's younger than Gevanni. He's almost definitely sleeping with Halle, and Gevanni is fairly confident he's jealous of a least one of them for that.

They reach the car, and Gevanni yanks out two gas masks, and tosses one to Halle.

Neither of them even need to ask. They know what to do next. Nearly everyone got out alive, but that isn't the same as _everyone_.

Near swaps his old-man mask for his regular mask. Gevanni looks away while he does it. Gevanni isn't trusted to know, but he's trusted not to look.

"Let's go," Near says, in the deep, mechanical voice that they're all used to. "We have things to do."

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but this whole entire story will be told in two parts. this is kind of for manageability (I don't want a 100k fic to try and deal with on my crappy computer) and also a stylistic choice that will make more sense as we go along. basically, Second Chances will end about halfway through the overarching story arc, and I'll make a new fic to tell the rest of the story. I'll give more reminders of this as we approach the end of SC, but I thought you guys might like to have a heads up.

+ thank you so much for reading, and for sticking with me thus far.

+ thank you especially to the awesome people who leave me anonymous reviews. I have no way of replying to you, but I appreciate everything you've said.

+ actually thank you especially to all of you. 3


	61. Overload

notes/warnings**  
**

+ warning for people experiencing psychosis/hallucinations

+ warning for severe injury

* * *

**Overload**_  
_

* * *

_No._

The building is on fire. Collapsed. Strewn across the road.

_Please_.

Everything is too hot. Crackling. Burning. Dead.

_Not him._

A painting falls from the wall with a clatter, foul-smelling smoke emanating from the canvas.

_I had plans_.

Rae can't.

_He was mine!_

Rae stops, collapses to its knees. Everything is on fire. Everything is broken and L was here and Rae cannot even fucking move.

Doesn't want to move.

_He is mine, fucking please._

The rubble must be at least two feet deep. There could be bodies in here. Nobody would ever know.

If L dies, he goes to hell. Rae will never see him again.

_Nobody ever loved me before._

_Not properly. _

_Nobody was ever properly mine._

They were going to fight crime. They were going to eliminate criminals and make a world where everyone could be happy and safe, and they were going to rule that world together and insult each other and sleep in the same, gold-plated bed.

_I am the fucking king, you can't fucking do this. I deserve to be loved. I deserve everything._

Rae has no idea who it is trying to plead with. It stumbles blindly through the flames, the smoke, the crumbling building. It finds a hall it hasn't explored yet.

L must be somewhere in here. Alive or dead, L must be here.

There's a body on the floor. A curly-haired man. Almost certainly dead. Not L.

_It's okay, it's okay_.

Rae walks right over it. Was the building evacuated, or were all the bodies just buried under the rubble?

If the building was evacuated, that dead man wouldn't be in here.

Rae turns another corner. If L has been taken away, then it will tear the universe apart to get him back. Somehow.

_When did this get so serious?_

_Shut up._

…_I did it for people like him_.

What good are all the death notes in the world, if they cannot save the people that need to be saved?

Someone else is here. A group of someones, wandering around even though the building is coming down on their heads. One of them is wearing a transformers mask, and Rae _hates_ that stupid cartoon.

_Please don't be dead._

Rae sees a familiar-looking ornate vase. It has no idea if it's been here before, or if it is just…

Falling apart.

_Fucking please_.

* * *

"_We still don't know who is responsible for your abductions," Near says, matter-of-factly. "Sorry."_

_He definitely isn't sorry. Jasmine pats your shoulder soothingly. She's here mostly to remember what Near says, because you have trouble concentrating on words. Your hand hurts so much that you can't even think straight. Your medication isn't working. Nothing helps. _

_Jasmine is here to help you. She's here to help you not snap and try to kill Near. Because you would definitely try, otherwise. Even though he's in some unknown city at his new headquarters and your only present connection to him is a grubby handsfree telephone._

_You hate him for not caring. You hate that you're all alone. _

_Because you can't see the Jeevases and Dwayne doesn't give a shit about you and nobody else even knows that you exist. You could suffer forever, and nobody would care. You're all alone._

_And sometimes it feels like Matt doesn't really exist here, either. He's changed so much since the orphanage. Since the days when you honestly thought you could catch Kira on your own. He's barely the same person, but you're still in love with him._

_The pain is like a red hot drumbeat, jarring and arrhythmic and right behind your eyes. You glance around the room. You're on the twelfth floor, and the windows here are just big enough that you could fit through them._

"_We don't think they're connected to the Kira case," Near adds._

_You stop fantasizing longingly about killing yourself and glare at the telephone._

"_What? But they said-"_

"_Don't interrupt me," Near says, blandly. "I have more important things to do than guarding you."_

"_But-"_

"_Those are L's orders," Jasmine murmurs. "Mihael, he's just doing his job."_

"_Oh," you reply._

_You don't have anything. You don't even have a single fucking point to make in a conversation about your own abductors._

_This will go on, endlessly, maybe forever. You will suffer forever. You can feel it._

_You go back to staring at the window._

* * *

Raye stares at the television. L still isn't back, and the art gallery he was supposed to be visiting is apparently now a smoldering pile of debris.

"Have you heard anything yet?" Raye asks Mail. He clenches his hand against the arm of his chair. L is both talented and resilient, but he isn't infallible. Things can go wrong.

Things have already gone wrong, and Raye is worried. L needs to live. He needs to lose the fucking skeleton and _live_.

"Nope," Mail says, calmly. He's staring at the scenery, one palm pressed against the window, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

"You could at least sound worried," Raye says, irritably.

Sometimes he forgets that Mail isn't actually a real human being. Sometimes he forgets how alone he is.

* * *

In a kind world, the blast would have killed Thornber instantly. Instead, death is agonizingly slow. Fire hisses around him, oppressively hot. It's only a matter of time before he burns.

God, he's so scared. Why does living always hurt so much? Why is the afterlife just the same as the shitty first world?

Why does everything hurt? Why can't he just be unconscious and die without feeling horrible?

"Hey," someone says, quietly, and they're probably just a figment of his fevered imagination.

They bend over him, coming sharply into focus. A tall man wearing a blue transformers mask. He's familiar. Thornber has read about him in the newspaper. His name is Near, and he is purportedly a good man. He took the name from some other detective called Near, who solved the Kira case but wasn't as good. Thornber is a little hazy on the details. Possibly due to blood loss.

_At least I hallucinated myself a hero this time_, he thinks, wryly.

"You are suffering," Near says. "Do you want to live?"

Thornber blinks, a new sort of shock to go with his regular shock. Hallucinations don't speak.

"Are you," he rasps, and he can't feel his tongue. His mouth aches. "Are you real?"

"I'm real," Near replies, speaking quickly and clearly. "My name is Near. I can save you."

Thornber attempts to laugh, and tastes blood.

"Nobody can save me. There isn't a world for people like me."

Near takes his left hand.

"I am building a world for people like you," he says, kindly.

Thornber stares at him, wordlessly.

"You are in incredible pain," he continues. He takes something from his pocket, and pricks Thornber's arm with it.

"Ow," Thornber murmurs, even though it doesn't really hurt.

"Pain relief," Near tells him. "It will start acting momentarily. Listen to me. You need to decide what to do from here. If you want to live, I will take you to a good hospital. You can work for me when you get better."

_Work for you_? Thornber thinks, a little deliriously. _You can't be real, after all. People like you don't exist, and they especially wouldn't come to save people like me_.

"You want people to live," Near replies, so maybe Thornber said some of that out loud. "We are alike, you and I."

"You don't understand," Thornber pants, searching uselessly for the words to explain to this fine upstanding man why he's a hopeless case. "In my world, there are no people. Only monsters."

"I used to think that, too. But if there are no people, then who did you just save?"

And suddenly, there is clarity. Nobody has ever cared about Thornber ever, in his entire life.

"I want to live," he says, desperately.

* * *

L goes to the local library, mostly because it's in the opposite direction to the way the other masked man went.

He crouches on the stairs just outside the entrance, trying to collect his thoughts. He has a pocket full of undetonated explosives. He needs to get back to headquarters as soon as possible. He can have Watari analyse the explosives and perhaps learn something about the new designs being used by up-and-coming criminal organisations. And then the venture won't have been a total waste.

Because he didn't save anyone. He put hundreds of people in danger, and he didn't save a single one of them.

_The terrorist who refused to terrorise._

The world sometimes produces the most unexpected heroes.

Everything was so much easier before Rae showed up. L was competent and strong, and not inhibited by emotion. He didn't depend on anyone else. He wasn't trying to solve impossible cases involving monsters and gods and worlds he cannot predict or understand. He wasn't trying to save someone he loved. He was reliable.

Now he is useless.

Except when he is with Rae. Together, they are incredible. Better than L could ever possibly be on his own.

Not that that matters. They are almost out of time.

L takes out his phone and calls Mail.

"Please send a car to the library on White Street as soon as possible," he says, quietly.

"Okay," Mail deadpans. "Good job not dying in the explosion."

"I did not do a good job," L replies, seriously. He's not sure why he bothers explaining things like this to Mail. Mail quite obviously doesn't care about his state of mind, or whether he's even remotely a good person.

Mail doesn't care about anything, except a man he may never see again.

But Mail is still important. L would still do anything for him.

L would do anything for too many people.

Mail hangs up. L examines the phone for a moment. There are people milling around. A woman is sitting next to the stairs, quietly nursing an infant. A young couple are standing just inside the glass doors, gesturing animatedly towards a book display.

The explosion was a good few blocks away, and nobody here even knows about it yet.

_The world in general, is actually kind of-_

L doesn't get to finish that thought, because something slams into his back and knocks the wind out of him.

"Hey," he complains, only irritated, not panicked, because surely this is an accident. None of his enemies are stupid enough to attack him in public in front of several witnesses. "Watch where you're…oh."

The something turns out to be a really huge flaming skeleton creature.

_His_ skeleton creature.

"What?" L manages, confused by the fact that Rae is here and not in Dundee, and even more confused by the fact that Rae has latched onto his waist and buried its giant skull-face in his shoulder and might actually be shaking. "What happened? Are you all right?"

_What on earth could upset you like this? Nothing upsets you._

_Whoever did this, I will kill them_.

"_Fuck_ you," Rae growls, loud and angry and fearful. "Fuck you for everything. How _dare_ you lie to me. How dare you even fucking be _near_ me. You are scum, you are fucking scum."

L tries to point out that he doesn't actually have the option to not be near Rae, because Rae is presently doing a first-class limpet impression, but Rae just talks right over the top of him.

"I fucking hate you," Rae continues, voice frightened and too high, words cascading over each other like it can't actually stop talking. "You deserve to die. Liar. _Liar_."

People are staring at him. L wraps his arms around Rae's shoulders and holds on tightly, aware that he looks like a madman standing alone on the stairs and embracing the air.

"I saw on the news," Rae growls, and L has never seen it lose control like this. He's never seen it lose control at all, really. "I saw the place…explode…fire…_fuck_ you, I thought you were dead."

It knows. Somehow, it figured everything out. L continues to be a complete and utter failure.

_I really thought I could help you_.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs.

Rae doesn't move and doesn't shut up until the car arrives.

* * *

"Is that thing okay?" Raye asks stupidly, as soon as L closes the door behind them.

_Fuck you_, Rae thinks, because that's all the venom it can muster. Everything was almost lost, and it hasn't recovered. It has never felt _bad_ before – never helpless, not like this – and it cannot even begin to process the way it feels.

"Please mind your own business," L says neatly, and Rae stops fantasizing about punching him in the face long enough to be grateful.

_Everything was almost lost._

"Is your friend okay?" Watari asks, when the sky has darkened outside, but no time seems to have passed. When Rae has yet to even loosen its grip because it has a person now and that person _almost died_ and how does anyone deal with this ever?

"It's my own fault," L says, sounding miserable, and then his tone changes a little. "Rae? Do you want anything?"

"I hate you," Rae replies, because that phrase is one of the only two things that it is certain of right now.

_I hate you._

_You are mine and I nearly lost you forever._

L is evil and hell will never spit him back out once he dies. And nobody has ever…has ever been _this valuable _toRae before, and Rae cannot.

Cannot.

"You have something on your shirt," Mail says blandly, later in the evening, eyeing Rae like it's some sort of barely-interesting parasite instead of an all-powerful god.

_I am a god_, Rae thinks.

_I am still me._

Rae has never needed anyone before.

Rae has…fundamentally…

Things are…

Rae cannot even think about it. If Rae loves L, then everything is lost.

Has been lost for several days, now.

* * *

Rae goes silent for a while after that, and L stays where he is, crouching on the sofa and still apologizing with every other breath.

He's never met someone he cannot save before. It's almost as if his falling for Rae is a punishment for something. Or some sort of challenge.

_Are those in hell ever used to test the living_?

Is he even certain that Rae is in hell? What is going to happen when their time is up?

L hates not having answers.

* * *

Rae wakes up the next morning, still in the living room, still wrapped around L. It gets up and goes to the empty office down the hall and screams and yells and pounds the walls with its fists.

Nothing is okay. Rae has never ever cared about someone, because caring about someone is the worst sort of weakness and Rae has _known that all along_.

Hell, that's how Rae managed to manipul…

_Never mind that now. That was a long time ago. That was practically someone else, remember?_

And L said…

No, it shouldn't matter what L said. Rae should never have gotten into this terrible situation in the first place, and now it has to find a way out. But there isn't a way to solve this problem, because this problem is _inside Rae's head_.

And Rae has so many enemies. It's only a matter of time before one of them uses L against it, and there won't be anything it can do to…

Rae stops, suddenly, fist raised in midair.

_No._

_Enough._

It hasn't been thinking clearly. The whole point of everything – _the whole entire point_ – is to become king. Once it is king, it will have absolute power. It can destroy whoever it wants. It can possess whoever it wants. And it can protect whoever it wants.

_Those last two sound just right for you, L_.

Rae feels much better. Calmer. The whole point of becoming powerful is so that it can stop worrying, stop guarding every action, stop always looking over its shoulder.

The whole point of winning is to get what you want. And Rae has just taken what it wants a little early.

_The only thing left is to seal the deal._

And really, the deal practically seals itself.

Rae is okay. Rae is just fine. Still, even now.

It just needs to keep L on a shorter leash, that's all.

* * *

They eat breakfast together in silence. L eats Raye's leftover jam roll. Rae eats Raye's leftover baked potato.

"I still wish I could protect you," L says, sadly.

"I will punch you in the mouth if you try anything stupid again," Rae replies.

Mail wanders into the main office at midday, the remains of Mello's sketch clutched in his left hand. L considers offering him tea, but he's pretty sure Mail had tea only last month, so it's probably too early.

"Hey," Mail says, by way of greeting. "It'd be really fuckin' inconvenient if you died, so stop doing fuckin' stupid shit."

And suddenly L feels terribly guilty, because he is the only thing that Mail even _notices_ in the whole world, and L is supposed to take care of him.

"I'm sorry," he says, quietly, briefly grappling with the urge to hug his pseudo-son.

"I agree with absolutely everything you just said," Rae pipes up. "Seriously, can't we just put him in a cage or something? For the next few days, at least."

Mail stares noncommittally at the Shinigami, which is a shame. L would really like it if the two of them got along. They are practically the most important people in his life.

And Naomi.

And Matsuda.

And Wedy. The little girl whose father murdered her mother. The little girl who grew up despite all of that and became a master thief and a powerful ally.

L would like to see her again, too. But he can't. He has to stay here and look after _these_ precious people.

"There's one thing I don't understand about you," Rae says to Mail, conversationally. "Why do you keep on living?"

"Don't say that to him," L snaps.

Mail is _vulnerable_ and Rae should know better. It's amazing that Mail doesn't just give up and go on dying and dying, over and over again, ricocheting through the worlds until they run out.

If they run out.

The point is that Mail always seems like he's a hair-trigger away from vanishing forever, from dying eternally, and even the _suggestion_ of that option might push him over the edge.

Rae kind of shrugs.

"I don't mean to be rude, I'm genuinely curious. Your life sucks so much here that I'm amazed you don't want to check out the third world. It could hardly be worse. And who knows, it could be nothing at all."

"It would be pointless," Mail replies, with certainty. "The only thing I can do is remember him, and I can do that here. So I will do it here, forever. I'm not ever dying again. I don't have _any_ hope."

"But-"

"Shut the fuck up," Mail growls, and stalks back outside, slamming the door behind him loudly.

And oh god, L would probably give his right arm to be able to comfort Mail in times like this.

He'd also give his right arm in order to be able to guarantee Rae's safety, but the choice between the two is a dilemma he's unlikely to ever have to face.

"That was horrible," he tells Rae, his sympathy for the Shinigami temporarily evaporating.

"Sorry," Rae says, sounding suspiciously genuine. "I really did want to know. Didn't you want to know?"

"No," L replies.

* * *

At eight o'clock, Raye goes to find L and the giant creepy bones-thing. He finds them both working, Rae sprawled out over the desk, and L curled up into an improbable position on the arm of the sofa.

"Hey," he says, gruffly. "The awards ceremony will be on in a minute."

"Oh yes," Rae replies. "They're showing a montage of Jones' day-to-day life, right?"

Rae frowns.

"Jones?"

"Wedgewood," L corrects, looking from the Shinigami to Raye and back again. "I have no reason to stop you from watching television, but why did you feel the need to tell us?"

"Are you actually a fucking idiot?" Rae asks, derisively. "They're showing us her _life_."

"Her apparent life. I highly doubt that any of her many secrets will be revealed in that montage."

"Even so, it might give us something to go on. A ticket stub. A web address that Jeevas could hack. Something."

L tips his head to the side, expression curious. Then he smiles softly.

"Are you actually going to help me find her, Rae?"

"Don't get me wrong, I still think this is pointless," Rae grumbles. "But if you want, sure. We don't have any other cases right now."

"Thank you," L says, warmly, looking only at Rae.

Raye rolls his eyes and picks up the remote.

"Either shut up or get a room," he complains, switching the television on and flooding the room with garish blue light.

* * *

The awards ceremony is drawn-out and boring. The first half hour is cars pulling up outside the venue. The introduction section passes uneventfully, showing fluffy, useless pictures of various fashion models sitting elegantly in luxury hotels, clutching small children they have plausibly never seen before, patting puppies, and generally twirling expensively.

And then, they get to see Grianna Jones.

Her montage is stark compared to the other models. Stark has always been her thing. Even the description under her stage name reads '_delicate looking, tough as particularly elegant nails'._ Another, less-kind descriptor reads '_serial divorcee'_. The only shot is of her sitting in her hotel room, staring moodily out the window. It's obvious that the camera crew were at a loss with what to do. At one point they open the closet and film her stash of dresses. Otherwise they just pan around the room for a few moments, and then cut to a section on a tall Chinese woman.

L looks at Rae.

"Did you see the photograph on her desk?" he asks.

Rae makes a weird expression, like someone trying to wrinkle a nose they don't actually have.

"Why are you useless?" it asks. "Who cares about the pictures of the kids? Did you see the-"

"Plane tickets on the nightstand? Yes, yes I did. The time was obscured, but I could make out the first five digits of the flight number."

Rae reaches for the laptop.

"B9877, right?" it asks, sounding pleased that L is still keeping up.

"Yes."

"There are two flights leaving in the next twenty-four hours starting with those numbers. B98771 and B98779. Midnight tonight to Washington, and ten o'clock tomorrow to Vancouver. I'm not sure which she's taking. Unless-"

"Unless those are her old tickets, and she caught a flight here from one of those regions and is keeping them for some unknown reason," L says, rubbing his eye. "We need another-."

"Another shot of her room," Rae finishes, and L feels amazing right now. "We're unlikely to get that unless she wins, or is featured in the closing credits somehow."

"Just in case you were wondering," Raye says awkwardly, "I am still in the room."

L turns to him.

"Did you have anything to add?" he asks, feeling genuinely friendly.

"Polls say she has a one in two chance of winning," Raye says, folding his arms tightly against his chest. "There's a good chance that we'll get to see more shots of her life after her speech."

"Excellent," L says. "Let's keep watching then."

* * *

Grianna has been to so many awards ceremonies that they're starting to all blur together. This one is important, though. This is a big deal. This is an _international _modeling award that specializes in diversity. The ceremony is being broadcast live all over the world.

She's wearing a blue leather dress that approximately nobody else in the world could pull off with any amount of grace. She always liked leather.

It was a trait, apparently, that she shared with her daughter.

Not that she'd really know.

_Fuck you, Marvin. Fuck you for everything_.

_If I ever find you, I will tear you apart._

She can look for Marvin later. Right now, she has something more important to do. Someone she has to save. So that she can…

…so that she can say '_hello_'.

'_Hello, my name is Grianna Jones._

_You wouldn't remember me._

_The last time we were together, you were only a baby._

_But I love you, and I want you to be okay._'

She's so tired of chasing after people in hell. This ceremony is almost a nice distraction. The canapés are even edible.

"And the winner for the most popular model of the year, in the size seven category, iiiiiiiiis…"

The host pauses for dramatic effect. Grianna doesn't look up. She knows that the cameras will be zoning in on her face, and then rushing away to capture a glimpse of the other major candidate for her category, May Silver.

May ought to win. She's sweeter-tempered than Grianna, she devotes herself to charity work, and she struggles with a hormone condition, body dysphoria, and nasty comments from a lot of transphobic assholes. And she still comes out smiling and beautiful, with kindness to share. She's basically perfect.

May ought to win, but Grianna _needs_ to win.

"Waitforit, waitforit, the winner iiiiiiis…"

The host is dragging this out because neither of the nominees are giving the camera the desired anxious response. They may or may not have discussed this in the dressing room beforehand.

The modeling world media is fucking stupid, seriously.

"The winner iiis…Miss Jacinta Wedgewoooooooood!"

Grianna Jones stands up to thunderous applause, and makes her way quickly to the stage.

_Totally normal, look totally normal. Don't look like someone who's about to do something important._

She reaches the stage, receives the obligatory hand shake, kisses the host on the cheek, and takes the clunky but light award into her arms.

Then she goes to the podium.

There are at least seventy cameras here. All of them are rolling. The audience is silent in their seats, the air above their heads a sea of letters and numbers.

Shinigami eyes are forever, but that isn't her concern right now.

The world is watching.

_This is for you, baby_.

"I want to thank a lot of people," she says, demurely. "I want to thank every single person in this room. But first, I want to tell you all something. But not a story. I want to tell you a _fact_. After all, we are all dead. And we are all _people_."

Everyone applauds again, even though she hasn't said anything.

"I want to tell you about something terrible," she continues, loudly and clearly. "I want to tell you about the god of hell."

* * *

Jas very carefully sets the squash-filled basket on a nearby stone. She politely tells Ryuk to go away – for the third time this week. She wipes the dirt from her hands.

Then she collapses in the dirt, screaming and clutching her head, trying to rewrite a million lives all at once, and the garden blurs and stretches against the melting skyline.

* * *

"Are you fucking serious?" Rae demands, sitting up straight. "Now _she's_ going on about the god of hell?"

L stares at the screen, a tiny smile dawning on his face.

"Very clever," he murmurs, sounding impressed. "Well played, Jones."

Raye shakes his head.

"A god of hell? She's nuts, right? How does that even work?"

"Perhaps," L tells him. "I doubt you will remember what she says for very long, but you should listen to her, all the same."

"Listen to a supermodel who is probably just part of a cult?"

"Yes."

Raye glances back at the television. Jacinta Wedgewood – or whatever her name is – is still talking animatedly.

"The hell-god is real, and they hurt people. They hurt our friends and family. They hurt people we love. They _break_ us and there isn't a damn thing we can do. Nobody even remembers the things they've done. But _I_ do, and tonight, there is something I can do. I'm going to break the god of hell."

"Nuts," Raye mutters, but he feels uneasy all the same.

Grianna pauses for a moment and beams at her audience. She's fully prepared to die. The hell god will surely be reaching, desperate, dangerous. She might just spontaneously combust. She might disappear forever.

She takes a deep breath and plows on.

"Let me tell you about the people you have forgotten," she chirps. One of the security guards is edging towards the stage. The host is eyeing her nervously. But nobody has stopped her yet. "Does the name Bernard Holland ring any bells? How about Amy Tilbeard? She was a modern pirate. She slaughtered an entire cruise ship full of people. But now nobody remembers that except me. What about Reverend Croup? A whole street full of people witnessed him bring a small child back to life – right here in London - but now none of them remember. Do you recall faux-Kira? She murdered _thousands_, and yet it seems that nobody actually died."

People in the audience are starting to frown. One man pinches the bridge of his nose like he has a headache.

It hurts, trying to remember. Grianna knows.

It hurts being a mother, too.

She sounds crazy. That's the beauty of it. Anyone who speaks out against the god of hell sounds crazy, but that won't stop her.

"And I know," she says, "that there are those of you who also remember. Perhaps not here, but elsewhere. Watching. Some of you have memories – half formed and ignored, things that never quite made sense - and I am here to tell you that those memories are real. You are not mad. Remember the hell god. _Remember_."

* * *

She can't hurt anyone in the real world. She _cannot_ have another Naomi Penber. Nobody can die because of her. But Jas doesn't have the strength to control so many people at once. She was never meant to rule the world.

It used to be that anything she wrote became real. She was limitless, because the notebook was limitless. But things don't stay that way. Tolerance builds up. She is part notebook and the notebook is part her.

And she is failing. Something has to give.

* * *

_You still don't have any chocolate. You still haven't gotten over the cravings. You're hungry and in pain and the room is too bright and Dwayne won't shut up and Matt has stopped returning your messages._

_You don't even have the energy to be angry. Now you are just sad._

"_I'm pretty sure the cobwebs in the corners are getting cobwebs in their corners," Dwayne says, grinning at nothing. _

_You follow his line of sight. The ceiling is as shitty as the rest of this place, yellowing and dusty and papery-looking. You groan and drop your head back against the leathery maroon sofa, trying to get into a more comfortable position._

_You can't ever get comfortable, though._

"_I don't fucking care."_

"_You never care about soup," Dwayne complains._

"_Soup?"_

"_Sorry, I meant to say 'anything'."_

_That doesn't make any sense. Strangely, the hair on the back of your neck prickles, as if something is really honestly wrong instead of Dwayne being an asshole._

_When you glance back at him, for a moment he appears to have two heads, one ordinary and one small and blurry and demonic._

_You blink once and he is normal._

"_Fuck," you say. "I need some fucking chocolate or something."_

_You need Matt, but you're never ever going to get him._

_You're not going to get chocolate any time soon, either._

_You blink again, and Dwayne disappears completely. So does the sofa. You're lying on the floor and the room is too small._

_You rub your eyes, waiting for everything to become normal. You've never hallucinated before. You are struck with the tremendous sense that you are all alone, that whatever is about to happen to you will not stop._

_You suppose you've just been waiting to go mad._

_When you open your eyes, the sofa has rematerialized, but the ceiling is green. But maybe it has always been green. It looks normal, with cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling and eyes in the corners of the cobwebs._

_And teeth._

_Everywhere._

_When you blink again, there's something standing over you. Something tall, with a manic smile and claws._

_The walls collapse, and horrors pour out of the darkness. You start screaming and don't stop until your mouth disappears._

* * *

Grianna Jones finally stops talking, coughing wetly as if she's choking on something. Except she hasn't eaten any food.

The hell-god is most definitely real.

"There are already records of her speech," Rae comments, laptop perched on its knee. "People are posting soundbytes and videos."

"They will vanish," L tells his Shinigami. "Everything will be gone within a week."

"Rubbish," Raye says. "How could it all vanish? Are you talking about a government conspiracy, or what?"

L turns to him, keenly, pen in hand. He draws a little skull and crossbones on Raye's arm, just below the wrist.

"Look at this," he says, quietly. "Remember the god of hell. Remember Holland. Remember what we went through."

Raye stares at him warily. Then he frowns.

"Holland," he says, sounding confused. "Who was…that was…"

"Remember how Grace Backstrum died," L continues. "Remember Holland. Remember what the god of hell can do."

"I don't really understand why you're doing this," Rae says. "Why do you need him to remember?"

"I want as many people as possible to remember," L says. "I want Raye Penber to know so that when I die, he can tell oth-"

"You're not going to die," Rae growls, gripping the back of his neck. "_Ever_."

L smiles to himself, and keeps tracing the drawing.

"Whenever you feel like you ought to remember something," he tells Raye Penber, "draw this on your arm. And remember Holland. Remember the hell god."

"She was turned to stone," Raye says, abruptly, aghast. "Grace Backstrum was…"

"Yes," L says. "That's right.

To the credit of the hell god, nothing terrible happens to Grianna Jones. She leaves the ceremony unharmed, arrives back at her hotel room, and spends a few smug hours browsing blogs and newsfeeds.

Nobody is certain. She hasn't broken the hell-god's spell completely, but people are confused. Most of the content of the various articles are recounts of Grianna's speech, followed by a few jumbled anecdotes of things people can't quite fully recall. Other sites are piecing together the information, creating profiles on Holland and Takada and various others.

And of course, her fansites are just talking about how clever and 'gutsy' she is. She doesn't care. All that is left to be done is to wait.

To wait and see if anything has changed. To see if she managed to make a hole in hell, that some might escape.

_That some might escape._

And if that doesn't work, then she'll go back to tailing those in hell.

_I hope you're afraid, hell-god. Because I am never going to stop._

* * *

tbc_  
_

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading :)

+ also I wanted to say that I realise there is a bit of confusion regarding what happened in the last chapter. in the hope of clearing things up, I would like to clarify a few points. **a)** bomb-retrieving guy in the previous chapter was L, and was only referred to in this obscure way from Near's point of view because Near didn't know who he was. **b)** any references to 'Near' are references new-Near, aka transformers mask guy, aka guy who doesn't kill, aka guy we don't know much about yet. he is working with Halle and Gevanni (from the canon story) and they all came to the second world relatively recently. ** c)** in this story, Nate River is referred to by his real name or Buzz, as he no longer owns the title 'Near'. hopefully that clears things up - let me know if there's anything else I need to clarify.

+ thank you again.


	62. Disappointment

notes/warnings

+ more hallucinations and mental illness

+ there are probably only four or five chapters left before this story ends and the sequel starts. :)

* * *

**Disappointment**

* * *

Ross Greenpod walks slowly down the street. He's bored. It's a nice night, and there aren't many people around. He's kind of hungry. The good thing about jail was that there was plenty of food. But jail was also _boring_ and the security guard was stupid and the roof over his head was kind of restricting.

Better to be free.

He thinks…he thinks he'll go for a blonde tonight. Yes. It was a brunette last week, and he's getting antsy again.

Some poor bastards do drugs. But there's no rush like killing somebody. No drug like murder, like standing over someone as the light dies from their eyes.

Someone is walking alone at the end of the street.

Ross smiles and heads in their direction. If they're blonde, he'll kill them. If not, well, he can always wait.

He's not in any rush.

* * *

Raye's head aches. He sits on the edge of his bed, tracing the outline of the skull that is inked onto his skin.

"Grace Backstrum," he says, under his breath. "Grace Backstrum. Holland. Grace Backstrum."

The weird thing is, he actually _is_ having trouble remembering.

* * *

"You missed something," Rae says cheerfully, flopping down on L's bed. "In the second montage of Grianna's life, we got a clearer look at that plane ticket. She's going to Vancouver at ten o'clock tomorrow."

"Of course," L muses.

"You want to try and meet her?"

L chews on his thumb, thoughtfully.

"I want to, yes. I am not sure how much good it will do, or whether she will want to speak to anyone in the wake of what happened today, but I want to try."

He needs to try. He loves Rae.

He's pretty sure Rae isn't capable of loving him, but that doesn't matter.

"Okay," Rae agrees. "Tomorrow."

_If there is a tomorrow_, L thinks. He's still worried about what the fallout will be. People are remembering. People are bound to be panicking, after finding out that their memories have been suppressed en masse. And even if that doesn't cause any major problems, what revenge will the hell-god take on Grianna Jones? What short cuts will be required to quell the memories as quickly as possible?

Who is suffering for this? Because L cannot accept that such a bold move might go unpunished.

What is Grianna Jones trying to achieve?

Rae nudges him.

"What are you worrying about?" it asks, quietly.

"The world," L replies. "I am not sure what is going to happen now."

"I'm sure the hell-god will descend from the heavens and smite everyone," Rae says, rolling its chocolate-coloured eyes. "Seriously, you need to sleep."

"No," L replies. "Not tonight. Tonight I am going to stay awake and monitor-"

"Monitor what? The whole world?"

"News feeds," L corrects. "Cameras. Whatever I can find. Since the ceremony was held here, and Grianna Jones is still in England, it is most likely that something would happen here, if anywhere."

"Whatever," Rae says. "I'm going to sleep."

"I'll watch over you, too."

"That was the creepiest thing you've ever said," Rae complains, leaning in and they're playing now. L ruffles the feathers on top of the Shinigami's head.

"Sleep," he says.

He will stay awake, not only because he wants to be able to respond to a crisis, but because he wants to witness the world remembering.

* * *

Rae dreams.

_The two chairs. The boy. The window. The shining thing_.

_Something isn't right._

_Something has never been right._

"_Don't look."_

"_Fuck you."_

Rae has the exact same dream three times in a row. It wakes up alone and confused and yet, somehow, more informed than before.

"It's not the window," it gasps, to the empty room.

It's the chairs.

The chairs are wrong.

* * *

Ross won't kill anyone for a few more days. He cornered a blonde office-worker at three o'clock this morning. The name on his pass had said _Tony._ He'd begged for his life, terror in his eyes, yammering about his toddler and his fiancé.

Ross is still running on the high. He loves the way the knife feels, as it pops through someone's intercostals. He loves the way he can kill in a single blow.

Life is good.

* * *

"The chairs?" L says. "That's a surprisingly unhelpful revelation."

Watari is driving them to the airport. Rae fits in the car better than it used to before. The Shinigami is actually _shrinking _now. L tries to force himself not to dwell on that.

"Yeah, I'm not worried," Rae says, and L is pretty sure it's lying. "The dream isn't really important any more. Everything is going to be fine."

"Your wings have disappeared, your vision is barely as good as a human's, and I can outrun you," L says. "I don't mean to alarm you, but everything is far from fine."

"Okay, smartass, everything _will be_ fine in a few days when you've written in the notebook, and I'm king."

"You are extremely confident."

"With good reason."

L smiles.

"Do you remember what you used to look like?" he asks, conversationally. "Before you were a skeleton."

"Oh, do you mean back when I was a person, because I'm definitely not a real Shinigami and I'm definitely really secretly a human being even though I'm first in line for the throne so that makes pretty much no sense?"

L hadn't really expected Rae to answer that honestly, but it was worth a shot.

"If there ever was a time that you were not a Shinigami," he says, "then you ought to at least consider the possibility that you may be in hell."

"Nope."

"Fine."

L gazes out the window. If he's lucky, Grianna will help him. But he's never been particularly lucky - not since the Kira case began - and he doesn't hold out much hope. Rae's confidence is a curse. It isn't worried about _anything_ any more.

_Is that because we're together?_

_Or just because you think you've figured me out?_

There's still no reason for L to use the notebook. Nothing that Rae could possibly be sure of.

L still doesn't have any answers.

* * *

Jas still doesn't move. She barely has any physical presence at all. She's devoting all her energy into being a force of nature.

She thinks there might be other Shinigami around, but that doesn't matter. She thinks her notebook might have fallen out of her pocket, but that is irrelevant. She can write on the pages with her mind. She _is_ the notebook.

Everything hurts and she is exhausted. One by one, she deletes the news articles, wipes memories, rewrites experiences. She works haphazardly, prioritising those humans that are likely to tell many others. Damage control.

And thousands of people in self-contained hells are having their worlds fall apart, are suffering and frightened because she doesn't dare make mistakes in the real world and she isn't _powerful_ enough for this.

Mihael is so scared, and Jas feels terrible for that. Making him feel like he's going insane isn't part of any of her plans for him, but she's eroded his self-confidence to the point that he can't even question the horrors around him.

She never meant for this to happen to him.

Still, it works. It's a nice way of fast-tracking the steady progression of shittiness that is his apparent life.

When this is all over…

When this is all over, she's going to make him an offer. And he will not refuse.

* * *

The flight will be full of celebrities, so the security at the gate is pretty good. Grianna only counts seven weak points. She goes and sits next to one of them in the lounge – a fire exit that leads straight out onto part of the tarmac.

She always likes to have an escape, just in case. Nobody has ever managed to convict her of anything yet, but there's a first time for everything.

The hell god can manipulate reality, and has every reason to be angry with Grianna. It's amazing that she hasn't been arrested a dozen times over, with convincing and yet hastily-manufactured evidence.

_That's what you do, isn't it? You let other humans do your dirty work._

_At least, that's what happens to those who have their hell in the second world. There are countless others that you keep for yourself._

_I know you, hell god._

The problem with what she did, of course, is that there's no easy way of _knowing_ if she was successful. The tracking library shut her out permanently a long time ago. There's no way to tell if someone has escaped from hell into the second world except by actively finding them. And when the person you're seeking is also a criminal, well…

_I'm so sorry you had to live that life._

_I'm sorry for Marvin._

_I'm sorry for everything_.

The maid remembered yesterday. They had a whole conversation online about how none of Kiyomi Takada's victims were real, messaging each other well past midnight. Grianna had been desperate to help someone remember.

This morning, the entire chat box had vanished, and the maid claims she went to bed at nine o'clock. Then Grianna's computer had shut down and refused to start. Her mobile phone isn't looking too healthy, either. The battery keeps running out.

At least the hell-god sees her as a threat, then, if they want to cut off all her means of communication.

Grianna Jones crosses her legs, glancing momentarily at her berry-pink, faux-skunk-trim designer shoes. No matter what is going on, she always feels better when she's wearing fabulous shoes. Shoes make her happy. She wonders if Mary also…

It doesn't matter what Mary would have done. Her daughter is dead in this world. They say it's hard to find someone again, once you fall out of sync. If one of you is in the second world and one is in the third, it's hard to ever meet up again. Of course, some of them say there isn't a third world at all. But Grianna doesn't believe that. Something as controlling as the hell-god has _got_ to be egotistical. They've probably made sure they have thousands of successive worlds to rule over.

A glamorous-looking actor swans into the lounge, nearly tripping over her legs. Grianna glares at him and he glares back. He can't be too famous, or he wouldn't be trying so hard. People who are truly famous are tired of the world, hiding behind masks or oversized sunglasses.

Grianna's sunglasses are roughly half the size of her head.

Anyway, she doesn't have time for assholes like him. She's always working. Always fighting. She's learned the Shinigami system of counting, she associates with violent and expansive criminals without getting hurt or caught, and she remembers more of the hell-god every day.

Nobody can say that she isn't trying.

A little old man shuffles in. He looks so out of place that he's either properly famous, or lost.

Or at least, that's what a lesser person would assume.

Grianna gets to her feet. She's seen him before, on the night Takada was arrested. He works for L. It's the same mask _and_ the same man behind it, judging by the hair, the shuffle and the stance. And also by the name. _L Lawliet._ She wonders if all of L's underlings have the same, single-letter first name. That would be an excellent hiding strategy. When one legally changes their name, the letters over their head change, too. L would be a fool _not_ to use such a strategy.

_How many people think they've killed L?_

She's impressed, and at the same time, disappointed.

_I single-handedly overloaded the god of hell, and all L sends me is the same grunt as last time?_

_Nice._

She's insulted, but she approaches him anyway. She's pretty sure he isn't here to catch a plane.

* * *

"What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" Grianna asks, softly.

L is momentarily overwhelmed by a rush of familiarity, like he's suddenly back in the first world and talking to someone else.

"Why did you say that?" he asks, stupidly.

"You're really smooth tonight," Rae snickers.

"It's my favourite phrase," Grianna says, primly. And favourite phrases aren't hereditary, it's just a coincidence, but god L misses Wedy.

"Of course."

"And this," Grianna continues, pointing to the nigh-unnoticeable crease in her shirt, "is my favourite gun. Just in case you were going to try anything."

She's smart, but she's also brave. Smart and brave are antonyms. No individual thing is both at once. Right now, Grianna is being brave. Taking a gun through airport security definitely isn't smart.

_Looks like you were expecting me_.

"Understood."

"This is a fascinating conversation," Rae comments helpfully. "I'm so glad we came all this way to chat with her."

"Your boss seemed pretty desperate to talk to me," Grianna says, thoughtfully. "Yet he's only sent you. Are you his right hand man or something?"

"No," L says, truthfully. "That would be the one called Watari."

"Ah yes, the legendary Watari," Grianna says, and then her tone changes. "Enough small talk. What do you want from me?"

"I came here for myself, not for L," L tells her. "The thing is, there is someone important to me who I believe is in hell-"

"You believe wrong," Rae interjects, floating near the ceiling.

"-and I am worried for what will happen to them when the hell-god starts interfering."

Grianna doesn't move. She doesn't smile. She gives no indication that she's even heard. L ploughs on.

"I thought you could help, since you have the eyes, and so much knowledge and experience."

Grianna actually bares her teeth, and her expression makes L briefly want to hide under the chairs.

"But this person is close to you. Right now, you are with them?"

"Well…not for much longer," L tells her.

"I think you've really won her over. She is definitely about to help you save my obviously fake-Shinigami ass."

L pretends to stretch and swats at Rae in the process.

"Then I don't care," Grianna snaps. "Come back when they've been torn from you and vanished from the world. Until then, I have no sympathy."

"We have a common enemy," L argues.

"I am not your ally," Grianna says, and turns to walk away.

L lets her go. He will not gain anything by force.

"You lost a child, didn't you?" he asks, quietly. "I said that I knew your eldest daughter, but you had a second child. I saw the photograph in your room. Were they-"

"The answer to the first question is yes," Grianna says, crisply. "The answer to whatever your second question was going to be is 'none of your business'. If you love this person, then use L's boundless resources to save them. If you can't save them, then you're not good enough."

"You won't help someone unless they're as hurt as you are," L says, with a heavy heart.

"Wow, you really are a genius. I've only been telling you that for the past few minutes."

"I like this woman," Rae declares.

"That is your prerogative," L tells Grianna, softly. "I have every intention of fighting the hell-god when our paths cross. If…if I fail, then I will find you again."

"Sure," Grianna says sarcastically. "You do that."

She walks away briskly, like she can't stand being near him any longer. But when she reaches her chair, she stops, turns, and mouths the words _good luck_.

"You too," L murmurs back, deeply disappointed.

He hadn't really been expecting her to help him.

"Are we done here?" Rae asks, brightly.

"Yes. We are done."

The hell-god might be struggling, but they are still managing to oppose him at every move.

_Is there really nothing that I can do_?

* * *

It will be a relief when the five years are finally up, and L stops trying to learn more about the afterlife. It's to be expected, of course, but it's still irritating.

Still, Rae has nothing to worry about. The only person who could tell L anything incriminating would be the Shinigami king. And _he's_ unlikely to start talking to random human detectives.

Well, the queen probably knows, too. But no-one is supposed to talk about the queen - let alone talk _to _the queen - and Rae isn't concerned.

L is huddled up on the car seat like he's trying to physically comfort himself, brow furrowed and knuckles white.

_I seriously can't believe you're this upset._

_This upset about me_.

Huh, now Rae feels awesome again.

"I really don't understand how you ever thought this would work," it tells L. "You couldn't save Mihael from hell. What made you think you could save _me_?"

"I don't know," L says, quietly. "But I had to… I have to try."

"No more trying," Rae says, firmly. "I'm not human, I'm not in hell, and I don't need saving."

Two of those things are definitely true.

* * *

When they get back, Raye accosts L in the doorway.

"What does this mean?" he demands. "I keep drawing this skull and crossbones on my arm like I've lost the fucking plot."

"Grace Backstrum," L says, politely.

"Holland," Raye says, suddenly, smacking his head. "Geeze, I'm getting so forgetful. Thanks."

L gives him a sad little smile. He can't even remember enough to be worried that he's forgetting.

Nothing will stay. The hell-god will suck everything away, in the end.

But not Rae. Not if L can help it.

* * *

Later that day, Raye draws a map of Holland on his arm, and stares at it confusedly saying '_grace…skull…grace?_' under his breath. L reminds him of the truth.

* * *

The next day, Raye gets freaked out by the drawings on his skin, accuses Rae of putting them there, and then hastily washes them off.

L doesn't remind him again after that.

It's pointless, really.

* * *

Hours pass before she can get up. Before the world is under control again. Grianna Jones escapes to Canada. L Lawliet falls a little more for the abomination in his life. Raye Penber forgets. And Mail Jeevas doesn't change, never changes.

Jas almost feels bad for him. Almost.

Jas rolls over, gets to her feet, and straightens the skyline. She plumps up the pumpkins, and erases a few more memories. She retrieves the notebook from the ground. It's lying further away than she remembers. Still, nobody seems to have paid her any attention.

She's fairly sure she'd know if anyone had tampered with it. Ninety-nine percent sure. She _is_ the notebook, after all.

She wanders into her house, furnishing it as she goes. She puts the kettle on, gets out two teacups, and then puts one away again. Sometimes she forgets that Remira won't be coming around any more.

Still. She won't be lonely for much longer.

Jas pours herself tea, sits down on a stool, and turns her attention to straightening out the worlds of those who are in hell.

* * *

_The walls are off-white, and strangely warm-looking. They meet the roof smoothly; no corners, no sharp edges. You keep staring at them, constantly terrified that they'll crack and split open and all hell will come pouring out._

"_You'll be safe here, sweetheart," Jasmine says, touching your cheek. "You'll be fine. They'll make the nasty visions go away."_

_The nurse smiles at you. Her pinafore is the same colour as the walls. Her skin is smooth, no corners, no screaming hell-eyes, no jagged teeth. You wonder what is hiding inside her._

_It's only been three hours since the world went back to normal. You found yourself suddenly in a car with Matt and Jasmine, heading towards this place, where moments ago you had been fighting a thousand snake-headed demons, trying not to be dragged down into a sea of bile and sharks._

_You're physically terrified that that world will come back at any moment. _

_Your sanity is fragile. That's what Jasmine said during the drive, when you finally surfaced. She told you that it's all in your head and everything is actually okay, you just can't see it._

_You don't tell her that you saw her husband lying dead at the foot of a ratty pink car, blood dripping from his goggles. You definitely don't tell her that that haunts you more than the hallucination where you were dismembered slowly with a small, jagged spoon._

_Because it was only a hallucination. That's what everyone says. It only happened because you're weak and mad and ill._

_You are so scared. Matt is standing right next to you, but he doesn't touch you. He doesn't even put a hand on your shoulder. He's scrolling through his phone and murmuring under his breath. He's busy, and you wish he wasn't. You wish he understood how you felt. You wish somebody would comfort you._

"_This is a good hospital," the nurse says, and you can practically hear the inverted commas around the word 'hospital'. "Your friends can go now, okay?"_

_You don't answer her. You stare at the carpet, checking for flaws in the weave. Flaws that might conceal tiny eyes. You wish Gemma were here right now. You want to hug her. You want her to talk to you about her perfectly normal ridiculously-named plush toys. You want to be okay._

_You want your family._

_The only problem is, you don't have a family. You've never had a family. Both your parents were dead before your first birthday, and since then, you've had nobody._

"_Mihael?" the nurse prompts._

"_We have to go," Jasmine adds, briskly. "We have to-"_

"_We have to get back to headquarters," Matt chimes in, finishing her sentence like the perfect spouse that he is._

_There are other people standing against the wall. Square-jawed, buff-looking people. People to stop you from causing any trouble. People to make you stay here, no matter what._

"_I don't want to be here," you mumble, under your breath. "I don't want to be alone."_

"_It'll be fine," Jasmine says, patting you one last time. "We'll be back to visit you in a fortnight. Maybe sooner if we can. You get better soon, okay?"_

_You feel like you'll be dead before the fortnight is up._

_Matt and Jasmine turn their backs on you and walk away. You move to follow them, and the nurse grabs your arm._

"_No," she says, firmly. A warning. "Stay!"_

"_Please," you say, blinking back tears. "Please."_

* * *

tbc_  
_

* * *

a/n

+ thank you so much for reading

+ updates will now be weekly for the next few weeks.


	63. Offer

notes/warnings

+ I want to clear up something from my last chapter. the 'Mary' that Grianna referred to was Mary Kenwood, ie Wedy (her real name is listed as either Mary or Merrie in canon). nothing definitive has been stated about Grianna's othe child yet. hope that helps clear things up. :)

+ warnings for character contemplating suicide

* * *

**Offer**

L takes the notebook from under his shirt and sets it on the desk. He hardly notices it any more, most of the time. It has become a part of him, like his shirt, like the lock of hair that grazes the back of his neck. He will miss it when it is gone.

L stares at the notebook for a good hour, deep in thought. Rae floats into the room and settles down beside him. These days, Rae is constantly watching him, constantly following him, constantly two-and-a-half steps behind him. L is concerned by just how desperately he wants Rae to always be around.

_Will we really still be together when you are king?_

_Will we even be friends?_

_You seem to care about me now, but will you care about anything, once you get what you want?_

On some levels, L supposes, he still doesn't quite believe the things Rae says.

"Hello," he says, out loud.

"Mail's gotten to work on the bathroom," Rae says, leaning against him casually. "Raye bought him a new set of markers."

"Oh," L says, touching his thumb to his lower lip. "I see. That's okay, though."

"Are you going to use the notebook?" Rae asks.

"I was considering it," L says. He would never have admitted to such a thing a year ago. He would have been unlikely to admit to such a thing a month ago. But Rae has slowly and steadily become his confidante, and it already knows plenty of his weaknesses to exploit if it chooses to do so.

But it doesn't choose to do so.

"And you've decided not to?"

L pushes his chair away from the desk, and Rae moves with him easily, like they've been together for decades.

"I can't," he says, simply.

He would die for Rae, but he cannot kill for Rae. He cannot set foot down that slippery slope.

"Light," he begins, and then swallows against the ugly name before continuing, "Light Yagami, who was born to good parents and an ancestry of decent people, became a ruthless killer once he used the notebook. I have the blood of a murderer in my veins. Imagine what I would become."

"You'd become you, but with a notebook," Rae says, shrugging.

"You don't understand," L says, sadly.

"No, _you_ don't understand," Rae says, cheerfully. "But you'll figure it out, soon enough."

* * *

"What will you do?" Mail asks, rubbing aimlessly at one of the ink stains on his arm. "What will you do if you see Naomi again?"

"I don't know," Raye replies. It's a difficult question. Sometimes he feels like it's not so much Naomi, as the absence of the absence of Naomi. She was always going to be a constant in his life. "Breathe again, I guess."

"Fair enough," Mail says, and looks away. Raye wonders, suddenly, awkwardly, if Mail is trying to live vicariously through him, in some small way.

_I'm so sorry, my friend._

_I'm sorry you don't have any hope at all._

Raye goes over to sit beside Mail, tugging at his new long-sleeved undershirt. It's really too warm to wear such a garment inside, but every time Raye catches a glimpse of his bare forearms, he gets the urge to draw on them. Something to do with skulls.

Fucking Shinigami. Now he has skulls on the goddamned brain.

"Maybe get her to cut your hair," he continues, just to fill the silence. "It's a mess."

He smiles, and Mail smiles weakly back, looking like he might shatter at any moment.

Sometimes, Raye wonders if they've got it all wrong, and maybe this world is hell, too.

* * *

_The first time you see her, you haven't slept in what feels like days. You're confined to a bathroom-sized, rounded room, with nothing to distract you from your thoughts except a smooth bed. The food is inedible, and you are starving. The nurses keep shouting at you and telling you to go to sleep. The doctors are discussing invasive surgery and electric shock therapy. They've taken your phone from you. _

_You are alone, and you are slowly going mad. You see teeth and death and lurking horrors out of the corners of your eyes. Nobody will show you any kindness. Nobody will even have a conversation with you._

_It is midnight, and the shadows on the wall don't seem to come from anywhere. You sit on your bed, knees around your ears, rocking slowly and wishing you were strong enough to get better or kill yourself._

_You close your eyes for just a moment, and you see her. It's the first proper hallucination you've had since you arrived here, and you wait in terror for her face to split apart, for the claws to appear. She looks like a proper angel, all shades of white and beautiful with feathered wings and long hair. And real angels don't come to people like you._

_Real angels don't even exist, what are you talking about? You are completely stupid. You've lost the fucking plot. If Near knew about this, he would fucking laugh. And Near isn't even capable of laughing. You're pretty sure the corners of his mouth are permanently fixed in neutral._

"_You need to rest," says the angel, with a voice like bells and honey. "It's been a long day."_

_And for a single second, you feel at peace._

_Then she disappears._

* * *

L goes to Watari, to collect some weird sort of watch device. He already has quite a functional, resilient and expensive watch, so Rae watches him intently to try and deduce what this new device is for.

The man is like a cute little puzzle. The more Rae can figure out, the more power it has. The more power it has, the more it can control L and make sure they are always together. And the more they are together, the more Rae can figure out.

It's an extremely rewarding cycle. Rae can't believe it didn't think of this earlier.

_Nothing bad can ever happen to you_.

The underside of the watch band is made of a weird sort of fibre that Rae hasn't seen before, with a slot to insert something like a very thin business card. L shuffles down the hallway, humming tunelessly under his breath, dangling the watch from his fingertips. When he arrives in his office, he locks the door and takes out the death note.

Then he opens the death note, and tears a thin strip from one of the middle pages. Finally, he inserts the strip into the watch band.

"The material is constructed to keep the note paper safe and undamaged," L says, without looking around, utterly certain that Rae is right with him and listening, "while still keeping a small part of it against my skin. As long as I wear this, I'll be able to see you, even after the five years are over and you've taken the original notebook back."

Rae almost bursts out laughing. L is positively cute.

_Why didn't I ever see this before?_

"Good idea," Rae replies, indulgently. "You won't need it, though. I'll make sure you can always see me."

The king has those sorts of powers, Rae is sure. L smiles warmly before turning to his computer. And sometimes, especially recently, Rae feels almost _bad_ about lying to L about the way the death note works. Especially now that things are so certain. It hardly needed to invent clairvoyant powers at all.

_The truth is, as long as L is reasonably certain that the condition will bring about a death, the condition for being king will be met._

This whole test, after all, is about proving that Rae's will is stronger that L's. But that's just the thing. L will be upset if he finds out Rae lied, and it's too early to take risks. L has already come at such a price. The fact that Rae is even willing to accept someone who _still disagrees with Kira_ is almost blasphemy.

After all, it's not as if Rae has changed its mind.

Has it?

* * *

A brunette, today. Ross is getting particularly antsy. A brunette with mid-brown hair, the colour of milk chocolate. He likes to set himself specific criteria as a challenge. Sometimes it's hard to find a person who fits the bill, but the rush is always worth the wait.

A little girl passes, staring past him, clutching her bag tightly. She has mousey brown hair. Not right. Ross lets her go.

The sun is still shining. It's a beautiful day.

* * *

_The sun is shining today. One of the nurses said so. You don't know, because you can't see the sun. _

_You get food at midday. And by midday you mean 'sometime between dawn and dusk'. And by food you mean 'fucking vegetables'. You don't eat them. Which is probably part of the doctor's plan, since he keeps telling you how you'll feel better if you just lose some weight._

_His name is Doctor Jay. He has a hooked nose and a disapproving stare. You have to see him three times a day, and he always shouts at you and calls you a failure. _

_When you tried to sleep earlier today, you could swear that the ceiling was grinning at you. Jay says that if you don't start improving by this morning, they're going to keep you here permanently for a minimum of two years._

_There's an edge of panic under everything you do. You feel like you've only got a little bit of time left before things start going horribly wrong. You're so terrified of being stuck in this place, abandoned and forgotten. You feel like the madness is worse here, away from anyone who could possibly make you feel better. You'd give both of your legs just to see Dwayne again, and you don't even like Dwayne._

_This is hell. This must be what hell is like. You deserve it._

_You lie on your bed because there's nothing else to do. Only as soon as you are horizontal, the hallucination comes back. _

_Not one of the bad hallucinations. The angel._

"_I'm going to do you a favour," she says, smiling. "I'm going to give you a proper sleep this time, okay?"_

"_Okay," you say quietly, momentarily amazed, in spite of yourself._

_How is this even happening? Nothing good ever happens to you._

_You drift off slowly, with her hand on your shoulder, and sleep soundly for the rest of the night._

* * *

"It's not much use starting a new case," L says, thoughtfully. "We have two days left."

"Yes," Rae says, placing one hand on L's head. "Are you worried, Miss Marple?"

L chews on his lower lip.

"I'm not entirely calm," he admits. "What will happen when the time is up?"

"I'll have to go to a church in the middle of the city," Rae says, shrugging.

L frowns.

"That sounds odd."

"That's the way it is," Rae says, unconcerned. "That's where the king will be waiting for me, at exactly eight o'clock in the morning. It's customary, apparently."

L really wishes that Rae would be a little more critical of its circumstances. He feels helpless. There's nothing he can do, and even if he could, there isn't enough time in which to do it. Whatever is going to happen to Rae will happen.

It's terrible to feel helpless about someone you love.

He's felt this way before, too. Panicked. Desperately trying to make someone else do the one thing he thinks might save them.

Like pathetically trying to force an eight year old boy to remember a foot-thick textbook, in the vain hope that one day he might have revenge against a woman already destined for the electric chair.

L still can't remember that boy's name. The boy his mother destroyed, made fatherless, for the temerity of being brighter than L.

"Oy," Rae says, poking him gently under the ribs. "You're zoning out. Don't tell me you're finally going into a sugar coma."

L smiles back weakly, and takes Rae's hand.

When will he learn that he can't save anyone?

* * *

They sit on the roof that evening, just the two of them. Finishing each other's sentences and laughing in unison.

"Maybe we_ should_ start another case tomorrow," Rae says, thoughtfully. "To give us something to focus on."

"To take our minds off of the next day, you mean," L says, keenly. "You are worried, my friend."

"I'm not worried," Rae says, honestly. It's a little on edge, maybe. Finally getting what it wants after all this time.

_Will I actually be happy?_

Rae scrubs that thought immediately from its brain, disgusted with itself. Of course it will be happy. Everything will be fine. Everything must be fine.

"What do you know of Misa Amane?" L asks quietly, clearly unaware of Rae's thought processes.

"That's kind of a random question," Rae says.

L shrugs.

"I admit I haven't thought much about her," L says. "But she was a significant ally of Light's, and she is possibly still in hell. So she could theoretically show up in this world at any time, like Kiyomi Takada did. And I remember that she was fairly resourceful in the Kira case. She could be a danger to me if she did come here."

"Resourceful? You think Misa had _brains_?" Rae asks, disbelievingly.

_Whoops. _

But seriously, who gives a _fuck_ about Misa Amane?

"I think I should be careful," L says. "Especially when you are not around."

"I'll be around."

"Ah," L says, and Rae wishes it could _make_ him believe.

Oh well. It will be able to make him believe soon enough. When it is king and they are together and everything is great.

"It's an odd thing, too," L muses. "I have seen photographs of both Misa's parents, and neither of them look much like her. I wonder if she was adopted."

"I wonder why you ask such stupid questions," Rae says. "Who cares? Besides, if you're thinking of adoption, you should be thinking about your 'son'."

"Don't make air quotes when you're talking about my son."

"You're not even a decade older than him. I'll use air quotes."

"Fine," L groans, rubbing his good eye. "What about him?"

"I dunno," Rae says, stretching its legs out in front of it. "When are you going to tell him about the redemption thing?"

"Never," L replies, promptly. "If I gave him hope, only to have it taken from him again later, that would utterly destroy him."

"But Mail refuses to ever die here. Even if Mello gets out of hell, they'll never be together."

"I know," L says, sadly. "But there's nothing I can do about that."

"Fair enough," Rae says, trying to sound empathetic. Like Rae knows what it's like to cobble together some weird-ass family of various crazies in lieu of actually having friends.

_I'm your friend now, L_.

Fuck that, though. Rae is more than L's friend. Friend doesn't have nearly enough bite to it. _Owner_ is much better, although not exactly socially acceptable.

They stay up on the roof for a long time, until L starts nodding off and Rae has to carry him to bed.

* * *

"_Two years," Jay proclaims. "No family. No friends. No visits. Nothing, until you get better."_

_You fall to the floor and scream and scream and scream. You're not angry. You're not violent. You are frightened and all you want is to go home. _

_The nurses start zapping you with cattle prods to make you shut up. People are shouting at you. Everything is grey. Everything is cold. The pain from your hand is driving you mad. It's only a matter of time before the world falls apart and all you want is to go home, to be anywhere other than here._

_You don't think you've been here that long, but you aren't sure. You've already forgotten what the sky looks like, and you wonder why you ever thought there were cracks in it._

_This world is definitely real. The worst, realest place ever. You don't want to go on living._

_Nobody comes to make things better. Even the angel has abandoned you._

_You are so scared, and you miss her. _

* * *

L doesn't need Mail's company like he used to, but he still wants to take care of his almost-nearly-son.

Mail beats him easily, with three kicks and an uppercut while L is still blocking the second kick. L falls back with an inelegant, surprised noise. Mail eyes him skeptically.

"You're out of practice," he pronounces in his usual monotone.

"Yes," L agrees. He's been too preoccupied with the hell-god and saving Rae. He needs to get back in shape once all of this is over.

Mail shrugs and takes a marker from the pocket of his coat. It's an expensive marker with opaque white ink. Perfect for the solid concrete, navy walls of the gymnasium. Mail Jeevas is very creative in his grief. Still, it will probably take him the rest of the day and half the night to fill the entire room.

L watches for a little while, hands shoved deeply into his pockets.

"You haven't gotten any better at all," he comments. "Not since the day I found you at the library."

"Nope," Mail agrees, a note of pride in his voice. "Never. Never better."

_Never better. That phrase has two distinct, utterly opposite meanings. Mail will never be better._

And there isn't a damn thing that L can do for him. Not even if he-.

Oh.

_Fuck_.

* * *

Raye Penber sits in his office, working on the next version of his signature. He and Naomi used to change their signatures together every eighteen months or so. Another one of her brilliant ideas that Raye always took for granted.

Raye increases the slant of his handwriting slightly, and alters the curve of the 'e's. As a finishing touch, he incorporates a little skull and crossbones at the end of the capital 'R'. No reason, he just likes it there.

It helps him to remember things, he thinks.

_RememberGraceBackstrumrememb erHolland_.

The thought is fleeting and odd, garbled and invasive, and Raye brushes it aside like nothing at all.

* * *

It is nearly midnight. Jas hums to herself, truly happy for perhaps the first time in her life. She twirls the locket around her fingers, like a strand of hair.

In a few minutes. Just a few more minutes.

* * *

_You walk around your room, over and over again, exasperated at the repetition. Sometimes you walk right over the top of the bed, like a kid at an obstacle course._

_Except that you can hardly remember when you were a kid. Except for the bits with Matt, of course. Those you remember in vivid detail. He was always the only good thing in your life._

_Where did all that go so wrong?_

_You deliberately stub your toe against the wall, over and over again, because it dulls the pain in your hand and your aching head. You don't even know why you're trying to survive. You stole a razor blade from the staff bathroom at lunchtime. It sits heavy in your pocket, your only friend. Eventually exhaustion stops you. You collapse on the floor in the middle of the room, defeated and panting. A spider scurries halfway across the ceiling and then disappears. You are starting to hallucinate. It won't be long. _

_You run your index finger along the sharp side of the blade. It cuts satisfyingly deeply. It would do the job, if you wanted to use it._

_But you can't._

_This is your hell, forever. You will never leave. It will never be over._

"_Hi."_

_You sit up, suddenly, braced for an onslaught from some imaginary new foe. But it isn't a monster. It's her. It's the angel. Sitting right next to you, wings taking up half the room, smiling kindly. She touches your arm and her hand is warm._

"_You," you say, croakily. You want her to stay forever. You want to shove your face against her shoulder and sob. You want to be fucking comforted. You want to escape from the hellhole that is the inside of your own head, if only for a moment._

"_Me," she says, laughing gently. She has different coloured eyes, one blue and one green. She rubs your wrist, and the pain in your hand disappears, miraculously, and you can suddenly think straight._

_The urge to hug her definitely isn't going away. You restrain yourself, though. You're good at that._

"_You look like someone I know," you tell her, stupidly. What are you supposed to fucking say to a benevolent hallucination, anyway?_

"_Yes," she says. "You will find that particularly good-hearted people often resemble angels in some way."_

"_Makes sense," you say. You don't even have the energy to snort derisively._

_No, actually, you do have the energy. You feel better. Well-rested and well-fed and pain-free. You feel like you are actually okay._

_You are going to start fucking crying all over the place._

"_My name is Hope," she says gently. "There are two things you need to know about me, Mihael. The first is that I am real."_

_All your hallucinations say they are real. And yet, you believe her. It is as if somewhere deep inside you, you always knew that angels existed. _

_Maybe you read it years ago in one of your books. You don't remember. But you believe._

"_And the second thing is that I have been watching you for quite some time."_

"_Stay with me then," you blurt out. The outline of Hope's body is translucent and insubstantial, like she might disappear at any moment, and you are afraid if losing her. "If…if you're my guardian angel or whatever, then just stay here."_

_If Near were in the room right now, he'd be thrilled to hear you having this conversation. He's been looking for a reason to have you certified insane for years._

_Oh wait, you already are certified insane. Never mind, then._

"_I can't stay for long," she says, brushing the hair out of your face, carefully not touching your scar. You hate people touching your scar. You hate people reminding you that half your face is irrevocably fucked up._

"_Figures," you say. Everyone leaves you. You will never be okay._

_The angel bites her lip._

"_Listen," she says. "I don't have much time. Angels can't survive for very long in this world, we're like fish out of water. But I wanted to see you. I've been watching you for so long and I hate how much you're suffering."_

"_Me too," you say. "I'm pretty sure my life can't get much fucking worse. Not unless tiger sharks start getting involved."_

_She laughs again, like you're actually funny. Like she likes your company. Like nobody has in years and years and years until you forgot you actually had a sense of humour._

"_Why me?" you ask, abruptly. "Why have you been watching me? I'm the most useless fucking person on Earth. Why would someone like you watch someone like me?"_

"_I like you."_

"_What?" you say, certain you've misheard. "I think you have me mixed up with someone else."_

_Hope smiles._

"_Angels aren't the same as humans. We value different things. We are drawn to love the way humans are drawn to competence and success."_

_You duck your head but you don't withdraw your arm._

"_You can read my mind, huh?"_

"_A little."_

_You shake your head. This all seems impossible. Incredible. A pleasant, wishful dream and nothing more._

"_So, can you help me?" you ask. "Can you heal my hand, or my mind, or something?"_

"_Only while I'm here," Hope replies, sadly. "I'm afraid my powers are limited here. The only thing I can do is…well, I could take you with me."_

"_You could what?"_

_Hope fidgets with her hair._

"_I could take you back to my own dimension," she says. "My job, as an angel, is to take care of the dead. You could leave this place, and come with me. Then I could take away your pain permanently. I could give you anything you wanted. You wouldn't have to deal with Dwayne or Near or any of the other humans who have hurt you."_

_You stare at her._

"_You can do that?" you ask. "You actually live somewhere where Near doesn't have any influence?" _

_It seems impossible. Near and L are practically gods now._

"_I live in another dimension," Hope explains. "Near has no power there. I can change many things. I live in a good place. You could make friends and be happy. You could start again. I could make you beautiful."_

_You can feel your mind going into overload. You could be…the way you used to be? You could start again? You could have everything you've ever fucking wanted?_

"_This is a one-time offer" the angel says. "I won't be able to come back here for quite some time. This world is a horrible, awful place. If you say yes, you will be with me forever. You will never suffer this world again. You will feel as you do right now, only a thousand times better."_

_You feel more amazing than you ever remember feeling. You feel better than okay. And because of that, you can suddenly recognize just how terrible your life has been. How much this world is wearing you out._

_You are so tired, and you want to sleep._

"_You can sleep if you come with me," Hope answers, effortlessly reading your mind. "So, Mihael, what do you say?"_

* * *

tbc_  
_

* * *

a/n

+ I notice quite a few of you were disappointed with the last chapter. sorry guys, sometimes not a lot happens in 5000 words I guess. hopefully the next few chapters will be a bit more exciting.

+ thank you as always for reading. I really appreciate it.


	64. Equilibrium

notes/warnings

+ to all my wonderful readers (and anyone who happens to be browsing this page) - have a wonderful christmas/new year/holiday season if you celebrate it, and enjoy the time off if you get it. I am thankful for all of you year-round. :)

+ please be aware - posting schedules and chapter lengths may be varying a bit as we draw towards the end of this fic. for example, this chapter is a little short, but the next one should be up in a week or so. it's hard to make promises when I'm on holidays and busy and away from home, but I'll be trying my best to get this up ASAP

* * *

**Equilibrium**

* * *

They are both still awake, still having the same old argument. Eight hours left together, and Rae still cannot stop L from being an utter asshole about Kira and everything he stood for.

Which was justice and freedom and things like that.

"There are lots of stars out tonight," Rae observes. "There must be a star for every person that Kira saved from criminals."

Okay, Rae may be slightly off its game today. It still hasn't fully recovered from L being fucking stupid and almost dead and…

_Don't think about it_.

"Probably," L says. "There aren't nearly enough stars in the sky to represent all the people he killed, though. And you'd probably need a hundred skies to hold enough stars for all the lives he ruined."

"You're an asshole," Rae says. "Why do you always do this?"

"You brought it up," L says, sounding upsettingly exhausted. "I said that I accepted your goals. Why are you pushing this particular issue? Why is Light so important after everything that happened?"

What kind of a question even is that?

"He's…not," Rae insists, frowning, both defensive and slightly confused. "_You're _the one who keeps bringing him up."

"_You_ brought it up," L says again, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And I think about Light a lot because right now I am a human with a death note, and it is important that I never become him. I learn from his mistakes."

L stops, suddenly, chewing on his lip.

"So he made you a better person," Rae says, triumphantly.

"That was not his intention, and it was not a positive reflection of his morality," L says, firmly.

"So many people have changed since the first world," Rae says, chewing on one bony finger. "What's to say he hasn't become a better person, too?"

L lifts his head, finally looking interested. The omnipresent rain is wetting his hair, making it clump around his face and fall wetly into his eye.

"Oh?" he says. "Has hell frozen over already? I'll just ski in and get Mello out then, shall I?"

"You're dodging the question."

"And _you_ are doubting him," L says. "Trying to placate me with the idea that Light might have somehow become a decent human being means you are no longer convinced he was right to do what he did."

"_No!_" Rae snaps. "Now you're twisting my fucking words."

_I didn't say that. I didn't mean that._

_Light never did anything wrong. Sure, he made mistakes, but he never made big mistakes. He never fucked up anything important._

_And I would know._

"I am repeating your fucking words," L says, diplomatically. "You are essentially arguing with yourself. Besides, I don't need a reasoned argument to hate Light. Aren't you forgetting all those people he killed in the first world?"

"They were all evil!" Rae protests, immediately.

"And unimportant, I suppose," L says, lip quirking. "Have you forgotten that one of them was _me_?"

The whole area suddenly swings into silence, as if an invisible blanket has descended around Rae, muffling the noise of the rain and the street below.

"Forgive me if I'm wrong," L says, the only sound in the world, "but I was under the impression that you weren't particularly tolerant of me dying."

_No_, Rae thinks. This feeling isn't particular denial. This is abject, panicked denial. A word to hold back the thoughts that are forming in Rae's head, the thoughts that are suddenly far too coherent.

_No. Nope. No._

And then a more specific, detailed refrain.

_Rem killed L. Rem killed L. Rem did it. Rem killed L._

_Nobody else did it._

_I._

"I'm sorry to do this to you," L says, getting to his feet. "But that is the truth. In the end, you can only side with one of us. Light and I are polar opposites. He is evil, and while I may not be particularly good, I hate him with every fibre of my being. I will _always_ oppose him."

_But._

L touches Rae's skull gently. Nobody else has ever touched Rae like L does. Nobody that mattered, anyway.

Then again, nobody else matters like L does.

Fuck, no.

_I didn't._

_Rem._

L's death was orchestrated, and Rem was only ever an instrument. Rae knew that. Has known that all along.

"What should I do?" it asks, quietly, genuinely afraid.

L grins suddenly, white teeth glittering in the dim moonlight, looking suddenly and impossibly charismatic.

"Renounce him," L suggests. "If you choose my side, then renounce him. Attack him on sight, if ever you should see him. Rule your world as you will, Shinigami prince, but don't involve _him_. Renounce him."

Light wiped their memories so that Misa would be caught. So that L would make moves to arrest her. So that Rem would have no choice. That was what happened.

"But…" Rae says, and then trails off.

Rae's world is different now, but it changed a long time ago, slowly and insidiously. Like a cancer.

Or a cancer treatment, slowly burning out the worst parts.

Rae cannot think. Cannot move.

"Think on it," L says. "I am going to bed."

* * *

Jas looks especially appealing tonight. Her hair is shiny and soft-looking, falling into curls at the ends. Her face is perfect, but not flawless. She looks attractive and approachable. Appealing. She is offering to save Mello from a life of pain and suffering and psychological torture. From a life of never being good enough, of never having anything good.

From a life of _hell_, literally.

She has crawled into his hell-box with him. She will take him out of hell and into her dimension. She will explain away the oddities at first, try to remain in keeping with the image of an angel. Over time, she will introduce him to the concept of Shinigami, of other worlds, of the hell-god.

She will always be his hero. He will have no choice but to love her. Nobody else can offer him anything.

She stays with Mello, touching him gently, benignly, as he makes his choice. His hell has made him a careful thinker, no longer rash and impulsive as he used to be.

Perhaps, if he had been given the chance to grow up in the first world, he would have softened anyway. He would have become a little less of what Near made him, a little more of what Jeevas made him.

Instead, he will be everything that Jas makes him. No human could ever ask for more.

She is, essentially, god.

Mihael looks up, eyes bright, and pushes the hair out of his face.

"No," he says, with absolute certainty.

* * *

"_What?" Hope says, sounding shocked, suddenly not quite as beautiful as you thought she was. "What do you mean, no?"_

"_I can't come with you," you say. _

_It's the obvious answer. You are an idiot, and so you give simple responses. She shouldn't be confused._

_The room seems to be shaking, wobbling at the corners. You wonder if the hallucinations are going to come back. You wonder if you are about to incur the wrath of an angel. After all, she loves you, or something. _

_God, you just rejected an angel. You are such a fucking loser that you have no idea why you are even still alive._

_You are exhausted by the thought of being still alive._

"_But this…this place is hell," Hope stammers. "Almost literally. Don't you understand? You will suffer here for the rest of your life. And I cannot come back to save you."_

"_Yes," you say. "I understand."_

_Maybe you don't understand. You're pretty stupid, after all. Maybe you are making a big mistake, but you are still convinced that this is the right thing to do._

"_So, come with me," the angel says, smiling shakily. "I'm trying to help you, here."_

"_No."_

"_But you'll be all alone-"_

"_No."_

"_But you're stuck in an asyl-"_

"_No."_

"_But your mind is decayi-"_

"_No."_

_You are practically in tears. You can already feel the pain seeping back into your hand, insidious and ugly. You are frightened of the years to come. You are frightened of growing old in this place, in this hospital, in this world. But this is the real world, and you have to stay._

"_Why not?" Hope demands, sounding angry. Sounding like you've ruined everything. You probably have. You're good at that._

"_Because," you say, weakly. "What if Matt needs me?"_

"_Why," she says emphatically, "would Matt need you? When has Matt ever needed you? What would you even be able to do to help him?"_

"_I don't know," you say, pathetically. "But..but…what if something goes wrong one day? Like, what if he ends up all on his own, or something? What if something bad happens, and I'm not here to help him because I'm not in this world? I'd never ever forgive myself."_

"_But I love you," Hope says, tearfully. _

"_I like you a lot," you tell her. "Thank you for trying to save me. Um."_

"_Um what?" she snaps._

"_l probably won't get out of this place for a long time," you tell her. "So, before you go, can you take him a message from me?"_

_You're going to try your best, even if you keep failing. You are going to eventually get released from this horrible hospital. You feel strangely hopeful. Like a weight on your mind has been lifted._

_Hope looks at you forlornly, limp and sad. You get to your feet and hug her tightly. _

_You get the feeling that both of you are fucked up._

"_Tell him I'm going to come home," you say. "Please."_

"_You won't even remember me," she says, distressed. "You'll wake up on this floor, and you won't remember me. That's how it works with angels."_

"_Maybe," you reply. "But I'm going to try, all the same. Who knows? Maybe we will meet again."_

"_No," Hope says, abruptly, pushing you away._

_Then everything goes black._

* * *

The constructs of hell are looking a bit shaky tonight. Ryuk examines them, and then decides to travel via the Shinigami realm instead.

Kai calls out to him, more in derision than greeting. Ryuk waves and keeps flying, death note clasped tightly between his hands. The pilfered page is hidden in the center of the notebook. Ryuk doesn't dare touch it. Rumours say that if a Shinigami touches that page, they'll turn into something like _her_.

And Ryuk likes himself just the way he is.

He doesn't stop, not even to rest for a moment. This cargo is too precious, and he doesn't dare risk being caught. He's not even sure what the punishment would be, it's _that bad_.

His wings are actually starting to hurt. He's never done this much exercise in his life.

_When I get back to the third world, I am going to eat so many apples_, he thinks, snickering to himself.

Tonight is a good night.

* * *

Jas doesn't collapse. She doesn't scream in rage. She doesn't tear apart the world, and she doesn't rain suffering down on those in her care.

_Keehl made his choice._

She goes on, as she always has. Chin up. Lonely and angry and resigned and struggling. Chin up. Status quo. Is, as it ever was, unchanging and unchanged.

_He chose Jeevas._

She should have known all along. She has a job to do, and there isn't anyone else but her. There has never been anyone else, and she was stupid to expect otherwise.

_If I were to force him, I'd be no better than…than the other one._

God, she is so _tired_.

_Keehl will never be mine_.

But she goes on.

_Eternity is a long, long time._

* * *

Raye gets up early and checks the news. Something odd happened in London last night. A young firefighter was found dead in his own home, without any injuries at all. His death wasn't considered to be particularly remarkable until they conducted the autopsy, and found that his heart had literally exploded.

The police are saying it's some sort of weird spontaneous disease. Raye isn't so sure, though. The man had reported seeing ghosts in his house days prior to his death, and.

Well.

Raye isn't sure monsters and ghosts aren't real. Which is weird, because he thought he would be. But now that he thinks of it, he vaguely remembers being certain, at some point, that they were real. Like, didn't he tackle monsters on a case, or something?

Some sort of beast? Like a chimera, or…

…a gorgon?

"Grace Backstrum," he says, suddenly, with absolutely clarity. "Holland. Oh my god."

* * *

_You wake up in your bed. In your actual bed, in your actual house. Dwayne is standing next to you, chewing worriedly._

"_You've been unconscious for days," he burbles. "I was nearly almost going to call the hospital."_

"_I was at a hospital," you say, even though you aren't sure why. You feel disoriented and panicked, like something bad happened and you missed it. _

"_You haven't been to a hospital since I met you," Dwayne says._

"_Oh yeah," you say, feeling stupid. "You're right."_

_Of course he's right._

_Your hand still hurts, though.  
_

* * *

Mail doesn't move when Raye first bursts into the room, shouting. He's always reluctant to give his attention to anyone who isn't Mello.

Maybe L is the exception. Maybe.

But today is also an exception. Because today something is wrong with the room that he spent all night inscribing with Mello's name.

"Give me the pen," Raye demands. "I want to write something on the wall."

Mail does move, turning to look at his colleague.

"Did you do this?" he demands, gesturing at the _wrong_ bit on the wall. The bit that doesn't say _Mihael_ or _Keehl_.

"I'm going to come home?" Raye says, curiously. "You didn't write this? But it's in your handwriting."

He takes the pen from Mail's fingers, and scribbles _Holland was real_ in neat letters near the bottom left corner of the wall.

Mail doesn't waste time with talking. He goes over to Raye, and punches him in the shoulder. Hard. Raye flinches and drops the pen.

"Ow. What was _that_ for?"

"Fuck off," Mail says, viciously. "Get your own room. You're ruining fuckin' _everything_."

Nobody understands. Nobody gives a fuck that the best person in the world is stuck in hell forever. Mail is the only one who cares. Who even remembers.

Fuck Raye Penber. Fuck L. Fuck everyone. Fuck whoever defaced the wall with _I'm going to come home_. What does that even mean, anyway?

Mail seizes the pen and scribbles over the abhorrent words, until every letter is illegible.

"I'm sorry," Raye says. "I'm just trying to remember."

"Fuck you," Mail says, again.

* * *

_No_, Rae thinks.

_No._

_Nope._

_No. No, no._

_No no no no no no no no._

_No no NO no no no NO NO._

_NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO._

_The chairs the boy the sparkling thing it isn't a crown it was never a crown the boy the boy the boy the boy the chairs._

_NO FUCKING NO FUCKING NO FUCKING FUCK._

* * *

"Your friend seems to still be on the roof," Watari says over the intercom. "I don't think it has moved since last night."

"I'm sorry to hear that," L says. "I was hoping it would be okay."

"Today is the day it leaves, right?" Watari asks gently.

"Yes," L says, glancing at his watch. "In forty minutes, in fact."

They are out of time.

L takes the death note from under his shirt, and lays it open on the desk. Then he takes a pen from the drawer.

This was inevitable.

* * *

Jas does not weep, but she does mourn. She gives up on L, and any hope that he might stand up to his evil companion. But that doesn't matter because she has faith – she has always, always had faith – that Rae's worst enemy was Rae itself.

True evil never reforms. _That thing_ must never go free.

And there are other people. The more she looks at the world beyond hell, the more she sees them. Not heroes, not gods, not even powerful, but _good_. Good humans. Humans who give charity and expect nothing in return. Humans who die rather than hurt anyone. The kind and the gentle. Those who have nothing and still find something to share with others. Those who fight evil without becoming it.

And, at the forefront of all of them, is the human she has nicknamed the Prince.

Instead of L, Jas will invest in someone else. To remain moderate, she must always aspire to be good. Or so Jas believes. She has to make this up as she goes along. She has no mentor, no predecessor, no family, and no friends.

She is still weary from Grianna's stupid games, from Mihael's rejection. Still struggling, still tired. And so it takes Jas longer than it should to notice that a small part of her is missing.

* * *

_Nobody_, Rae thinks, with finality, _nobody is ever ever ever allowed to hurt L._

But Light killed L.

_No!_

Yes, Light killed L. That was the entire fucking plan. That was the whole point of giving up the death notes and the memories and setting up Yotsuba and engaging Rem in the first place. In the first year of owning the notebook, Light had exactly two goals. Rid the world of criminals, and make L dead.

_Yes okay, but._

But what?

Rae isn't even sure who it is arguing with, but it has the horrible suspicion it might be the boy in the other chair.

_Okay, but look, there wasn't a way to rid the world from evildoers and let L remain alive._

Isn't that what they're doing now, though? Here, in the second world. Isn't L making a dent on the criminal population? Isn't L managing not to murder any innocent bystanders?

If Light was so clever, why didn't he come up with something like this?

_Your arguments are starting to not make any sense._

The terrifying thing is that Rae is no longer capable of managing without L. The threat of losing him the other day was devastating.

_Shouldn't have gotten attached._

But that's what good people do. They _get attached_. That is why new Near defeated old Near.

_Suck on that, old Near._

Yes okay they've established that neither of them like old Near. Thanks for that, boy-in-classroom.

Wait, classroom?

_Neither?_

Everything is broken, and Rae is not okay.

But it will be, soon.

* * *

Ross sashays down the street. He's been circling the same old rundown church for a few hours now. Today he's looking for a _real_ brunette. Jet black hair, and not a shade lighter. It's a challenge in a place like London.

He's up for a challenge. He found some pizza in the dumpster earlier that couldn't have been more than a day old. Practically a feast for a free man.

Ross fingers the knife in his pocket, tips his hat to a passing broad, and keeps walking.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n:

+ thank you for everything guys 3


	65. One

notes/warnings

+ in which things happen

+ warning for potential character death

+ I love fish. I wish there were more fish in this story. :(

* * *

**One**

* * *

Watari wasn't exaggerating. Rae has not moved physically even an inch.

"You okay?" L asks, and Rae just stares at him, eyes the colour of molasses.

L isn't bothered by the silence. He isn't feeling great right now, either. He pads across the roof to stand next to his Shinigami.

"I said something troublesome," he observes. "But I can't really apologise. You say a lot of troublesome things, too."

Rae continues to gape at him, looking frightened and strangely young.

"What," it says, quietly, "what are you, Lawliet?"

L tilts his head to one side.

"Unwashed, ugly and obnoxious?" he suggests. "Or were you looking for something more along the lines of 'tall'?"

Rae just shakes its head.

_You aren't even joining in the banter. You must be suffering._

L checks his regular watch. The new watch isn't calibrated as perfectly as he requires of a timekeeping device, since that is not its function.

"Fifteen minutes left," he announces. "We should go. You don't want to keep the old king waiting, do you? He may decide to give your crown to someone else."

That _does_ get Rae's attention.

"You used the notebook?" it asks, croakily.

"I used the notebook" L says, sadly.

But not too sadly. He didn't use it as a criminal would. L's weakness nowadays is his humanity, not his propensity for evil. He was so scared of turning out like Light that he has come full circle; become the inverse of Light. In a thousand million years, Light never would have used the notebook on someone he loved so that they might one day have a shot at being human again.

Mostly because Light wasn't capable of love, but that isn't the point.

"I renounce Light Yagami," Rae says suddenly, without preamble.

For a moment, L freezes up. He hadn't actually been expecting this.

"What?"

"You were right," Rae says, vehemently. "He…he killed you, and I can't tolerate that. I will destroy anyone who tries to kill you. You are mine."

"Oh," L says, eloquently. "Okay."

Rae gets to its feet, suddenly seeming much more normal.

"No parent can resist the opportunity to save their child, huh?"

"That was an unnecessary number of air quotes" L replies, frowning.

"No, it was the correct number." Rae says, smirking.

It takes the notebook from L's unresisting hands and opens up to the first page. And there, in L's messy handwriting, is a single sentence.

'_Mail Jeevas will die quickly and painlessly at the exact moment that the following two conditions are met: that Mihael Keehl is in the third world, and in the case that Mail's death would take him to the third world and not to hell.'_

"Very well written," Rae comments. "No room for error or misinterpretation. You would never have forgiven yourself if you had let this opportunity escape."

"Should I ask whether Mail's name is sufficient?" L enquires. "Or am I correct in the assumption that the clairvoyant powers of the notebook were fabricated, and that whether the death will actually occur is in fact irrelevant to your becoming king?"

Rae was always too certain, as if there was never any doubt.

And that's okay. L would rather not know. He would rather have hope that one day, Mello will go free.

"I'm sorry for lying to you," Rae says, sounding genuinely contrite.

"I'm used to being lied to," L murmurs, without really thinking.

"I'm not like him," Rae says, quickly.

"I know."

"I will kill him for you," Rae says. "Will that be enough? If I kill him for you?"

"I'm not asking you to kill anyone," L says, but he is relieved to hear Rae say those words, all the same.

"I will anyway."

It's getting warmer. The sun is trying to shine through the rain. Today is going to be a beautiful day.

"Come on," he says, smiling. "Let's go to this church and get your crown."

* * *

Saying goodbye to the damn Shinigami isn't exactly the saddest moment in Raye's recent history. It might even be the happiest moment in Raye's recent history.

"Goodbye," Rae says to Mail, sounding suspiciously sincere.

"I don't care," Mail points out. But then he actually turns and looks at Rae with those intense, tortured blue eyes, and says, "but you should never fuckin' leave him."

It's strange, the way he's lost everything and still has just enough energy left to try and protect other people's relationships.

Maybe it's his way of atoning.

"I won't," Rae says, grinning like an extremely dehydrated shark.

"So why are you saying goodbye?" Raye inquires.

"I'm not coming back for _you_."

Raye rolls his eyes.

"Remember that time you pretended to care about me so that you could hurt L?" he says. He feels like he should at least remind L that the Shinigami isn't exactly trustworthy.

_We should be trying to get as far away from this thing as possible, not letting it into our team and dating it._

Seriously, why did it even come to this? Why isn't Naomi here to stop L from doing incredibly stupid things? Why isn't Naomi _here_?

"We all remember that," L says, quietly. His back is straighter than usual. Despite Rae's good mood, he's worried about something. And really, that's not a surprise. They're dealing with Shinigami and ungodly notebooks and a whole lot of rules they don't know or understand.

"Do you want me to come with you?" he offers, suddenly.

"No," Rae scoffs.

"No," L agrees. "Stay here and watch the headquarters. I should be back soon."

Raye still remembers the day they first found out L had a death note. Back when there were more of them, and they were happier. They questioned L's morality and his strength, and they worried for their own lives.

Those days seem so long ago, now. He understands something of how Naomi felt, of what it means to trust L with one's own life and not be afraid.

Raye looks straight into Rae's evil, mud-coloured eyes.

"Whatever happens," he warns, "you leave him out of it. You make sure L comes back home."

Rae stares down at him, looking calmly smug, and Raye is hit by an odd, unnerving sense of déjà vu.

_What?_

"Of course," Rae says, haughtily.

And then L waves and they're both gone, walking down the hall towards the elevator like today is an ordinary day and nothing could possibly go wrong. Raye Penber grits his teeth and rests his head back against the wall.

"I have a bad feeling about this," he says.

Mail doesn't listen. He's too busy scrawling Mihael's name across the desk.

* * *

L has a portable recording device strapped under his shirt, where the notebook used to be. It is a poor substitute, but it would be poorer still to be found wanting. He still has the remaining scrap of death note paper in his new watch. He also has a pair of the mirror-glasses in his pocket.

He has no idea what the hell-god might throw at them.

He leaves his guns and knives in the base. Ordinary weapons won't be useful against something omniscient, something that can rewrite the world.

Even if Rae ascends the throne and they never meet again, that will suffice. L will be happy. He has learned not to hope for too much. And he has learned to bargain. He has lost so many people that all he can ask for is _not any more, not this one._

"_You can't grieve all the time_."

Raye Penber told him that a few weeks ago.

"_Not unless your name rhymes with Spail Weevas."_

Raye sometimes fancies himself as a comedian.

They drive most of the way to the church, in one of the cars made especially for L. It's just the two of them; L wouldn't dare involve any of his team in something as dangerous and uncertain as this. L parks outside what was probably once a supermarket, and is now a dilapidated heap of brick. The church is right next door. Both venues are completely abandoned, and nobody is around.

Rae is still talking enthusiastically, about becoming king and winning and what they're going to do together for the rest of eternity. And every so often it frowns and tells him that it hates Light. And L believes every word it says.

But he's still scared. Because the enemy isn't Light, today. It isn't even remotely human.

"Hurry up," Rae says, cheerfully, when L takes too much time getting out of the car. It opens the door and pulls him out, and L spills onto the ground in a graceful flurry of limbs.

"Impatient," he says, softly.

Rae picks him up like he's a small toddler and spins him around.

"You were the one who decided to make me wait five years," it says.

L laughs, despite himself, and tucks his head under Rae's chin for a moment.

"You were the one playing silly games," he says. "You could have just told me outright that I'd have to use it to give Mail a chance. You don't have to make everything a battle."

He has the sudden desire to kiss the top of Rae's head, but Rae sets him down before he can act on it. They walk the rest of the short distance to the church, side by side, and L thinks _oh please, give me this one, oh please._

The hell-god drives everyone to prayer. There isn't anything else.

The church looks even more disused up close. It appears as if someone might have made an effort to replace some of the broken walls with corrugated iron, but even the iron is decades old. In fact, even the rubbish strewn around the grounds seems to be years old. Nobody comes here any more. Rae stops him when they get to the entrance, its hand against his chest.

"No," it commands. "You can't come in here. This is secret Shinigami business."

"Really?" L asks, carefully. "It might be safer if I-"

"Really," Rae replies. "Go and drive back to headquarters. I'll come and visit you tonight."

"Tonight when you are king?"

Rae lays its skeletal skinless hands on L's shoulders.

"Yes."

L doesn't believe it. Everything seems too easy, despite the fact that he was forced to use the death note. Mail's potential death – if it occurs – will be kind and beneficial to everyone involved. L has not become Light. L and Rae are more than friends. Rae renounced Light. Nothing is here to stop them. The path to the church is clear and yet L is afraid.

_Too easy._

_Can't you see it, Shinigami?_

But he has no explanation. No logic to convince Rae. Nothing but an unease in his heart and an odd sensation in his stomach and the terrible conviction that they are never going to see each other again.

_Please don't be a person in hell. Please just be a death god. Please become king and be okay. _

_Oh please. _

"And we'll play chess," Rae says, clearly reading his mood, one hand trailing over his chest. "And eat your stupid cake."

"Those are the worst euphemisms I have ever heard."

"That too," Rae says, grinning. "I expect a lot of compensation for all the stupid things you've done."

"Let's kill Light as well," L blurts out suddenly, stupidly. "Let's protect the world from him."

Rae tilts its head.

"Well, I'm not sure he's somewhere we can kill him, but we can make sure he isn't coming back," it promises, earnestly.

_Why did you have to be everything I wanted?_

"Okay," L replies.

Rae shoves him in the general direction of the car.

"Okay," it agrees. "Go. See you soon."

L takes a few steps and glances over his shoulder. Rae seems to be looking for something near the entrance. The door is closed. Perhaps some sort of key?

_What are they going to do to you in there?_

Helplessly, L turns away and makes a beeline for the car.

There is nothing that he can do.

* * *

Oh hey, there is someone else here now. A tall man, unkempt and gangly-looking in a white shirt and blue jeans. He has thick black hair. He's missing an eye.

Either that or he's a pirate enthusiast.

Ross approaches him on his blind side, footsteps light, knife in hand.

The man seems troubled. He keeps staring back at the entrance to the church, as if he can see someone there. But the whole place is empty except for the two of them. They are alone.

Oh well. Stabbing a mentally ill person is practically a civil service. Ross raises his trusty knife, crowds quietly behind the man's back, and smiles to himself.

* * *

On a different day, everything would have been fine.

On a different day, L wouldn't be distracted. His normally-sharp senses would be normal and sharp. He would be paying attention to his surroundings, infinitely paranoid.

On a different day, when grabbed from behind, turned around, and thrown up against his own expensive car, L would have struck accurately. He'd have used his knowledge of the four different weak points in the human wrist joint, and his ability to precisely calculate and exploit the center of gravity for any opponent. His assailant would be lying unconscious on the filthy ground. On a different day, when he hasn't spent the past few weeks focused purely on Rae and cases, L wouldn't be out of practice.

And on a better day, even after the knife was rammed threateningly against his throat, L might have been able to talk his way out of the situation. He is rich, after all, and powerful. He is much more useful alive than dead. On a different day, he'd be able to do something other than stare at Rae, still fussing obliviously near the church door, and think _this is it. _

_Don't turn around._

_Just walk away._

He loves Rae, and this is how it ends.

* * *

Rae rolls its eyes. The key was supposed to be _right here_, in a visible location. Trust the king to throw in one final ridiculous test.

When Rae is king, it is never going to hang out with Shinigami ever again. They're all assholes. Except Rae, of course. Rae is perfect. Rae is getting everything it ever wanted. It kind of wants to announce its success to the world, to rub its victory in the face of its enemies, but it has learned to be a little quieter about its achievements.

_After all, boasting didn't work out so well last time_.

Where the hell is this key? Hasn't Rae suffered enough? Isn't it confusing enough to have a new-found, dissonant hatred of Kira pulsing through its entire body? Isn't it enough that it managed to totally dominate its ex-rival? Now it has to go looking for a fucking piece of metal in order to claim its rightful reward?

"Here," someone says sweetly, appearing beside Rae. "Sorry, the king forgot to leave this out for you. You know what he's like."

Rae scowls at the blonde, angel-shaped Shinigami.

"He shouldn't have-"

L cries out, suddenly, and Rae stops dead. It glances wildly at the parking lot. L is pressed up against his car, eye wide, expression terrified. Some…some fucking _mugger_ has their knife to his throat.

_NO DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE_

Rae doesn't think. It just reacts, diving off the stoop. No fucking ordinary human is going to take everything away from the Shinigami crown prince. There will be hell to pay. Hell and brimstone and eternity and oh god L cannot ever die no.

The other Shinigami grabs Rae's arm.

"You can't do that," she says. "Your test is complete. You cannot interfere."

"_Fuck_ you," Rae snarls.

"No, seriously," she bleats. "Look, your Shinigami powers should be restored by now. Look at L's lifeline."

Sure enough, the words _Ross Greenpod_ spring up over the mugger's head, complete with a five year three day lifespan. And over L's head, _L Lawliet_, and…

…thirteen _seconds_.

"No!" Rae yells, abject denial.

It can fix this. It can stop this.

"Did you forget his lifespan? Surely you knew he would die today."

Rae had forgotten. Rae had seen it earlier, and then forgotten. Impossibly forgotten. Rae's head hurts. It doesn't care. It will take Ross Greenpod and tear him apart. A single bead of blood dribbles down L's throat.

"Sorry, matey," Ross tells him. "If it helps, this isn't personal."

Rae claws at the other Shinigami.

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!"

"But there isn't anything you can do," she says calmly, and she must be evil. Only an evil person would be calm when L is going to die. "You aren't of substance in this world, and you'll be destroyed if you use your death note."

_NO!_

Rae takes out its notebook and stares at the pages.

No. Rae cannot die. Rae can never die. Rae has to live forever.

If Rae uses its notebook to save a life, it will disappear from all worlds. It will never be king. It will never be at all. Those are the rules.

_Fuck the rules_.

But she's right. There isn't anything else that can be done.

Rae refuses to accept this. Rae has never been able to accept the world for what it is.

"L can't die," Rae says, croakily. "He…please. He can't die."

The other Shinigami lays a hand on his shoulder. She has one blue eye and one green, and she looks surprisingly human. She must be fairly high-ranking.

"He is irrelevant now," she says, warmly. "You've done what you needed to do. This is his time. Let it go."

_Let it go_.

_No. no, never._

Rae cannot die L cannot die this cannot be the choice L will go to hell they will never be together again L has to die.

_We were partners_.

"You hated him all along," the other Shinigami says. Rae thinks her name might be Jas, or something. "Come on. Here's the key. Let's go and claim your crown."

The timer over L's head counts down. Ten seconds left.

Rae closes the notebook. Then opens it again. Then closes it again, agonized.

Rae cannot die. Not even for someone like L. It is impossible, and improper. Rae has a job to do; the world needs it alive.

Eight seconds.

Seven.

* * *

Jas is kind of annoyed that her present charge is making such a big deal of this.

_You are greedy and narcissistic. This shouldn't even be a stumbling block for you._

She grinds the sole of her shoe into the ground, and smiles winningly at Rae.

_Fuck you. You shouldn't even be allowed to exist._

She has never met anyone so evil, and true evil, by definition, cannot change. Especially not like this. The time of the test is now.

L dies tonight, and that is sad, but the outcome of this moment is crucial for the survival of the entirety of humanity. And Jas would know. She is moderation, after all.

* * *

_The boy. The boy Rae vaguely knows, vaguely recognises, vaguely cares about. Not L. Not ultimately, unwaveringly important. Just a boy._

_Or was he important?_

L isn't making any noise. He's not screaming or flailing or doing anything. Rae hates him for being so accepting of his fate.

_The chair. Wooden and startling ordinary. A nothing-chair. Rae is sitting on it. Rae is the only bright thing in the room. Everything else is rendered in sepia, unimportant._

L and Rae. They are the only two important people in the world. Rae hates this moment, hates this entire universe. Rae wants to rip its skull apart. It wants to destroy the king and the queen and the Shinigami realm. It hates this position into which it has been placed. It loathes itself for being manipulated into this, as if all the roads had lead here all along.

_The huge, unremarkable window. And outside it, greenery. Organised greenery, like a courtyard or a school grounds. And the sparkling, beautiful thing. Rae doesn't need to look at it. It is just there._

This isn't a choice. Nobody can make a choice like this.

_The second chair, also wooden. The hand on Rae's shoulder. The boy in his chair, pleading and slightly frightened. Rae can never make out his face._

"_Don't look."_

But what is the point of becoming king just to save an empty world full of unimportant people? Is that what the dream is about? Because that is a shitty motto and Rae is going to live forever and fuck you. If Rae can't have L then nobody will.

_Rae goes to look, and then realizes._

Rae can't disappear. It has already given up so much.

_Rae finally, finally realizes._

The boy in the dream. He was important. Is important.

All anyone ever wants is to have no regrets. To be able to say that they'd do it all the same if they had a chance to do it over again.

How many people has Rae killed? At least one too many.

_What has always been obvious all along._

Rae can never, ever atone for what it did.

It renounced Kira, and that means…

It has to go back. It has to go back for that sepia-boy. It has to save L.

Because Rae never should have looked.

_That there was only ever one chair._

Rae wants to scream. It wants grieving and mobs protesting and flowers and glory and fame. It wants to leave an imprint so huge that the world never forgets, is never the same.

It is literally petrified of dying; of being permanently gone.

The counter over L's head ticks. Three seconds. In three seconds, everything will be over.

_There was only one person in the room_.

Rae scribbles Ross Greenpod's name under Mail's, its handwriting jagged and pained and desperate and lonely. It ends the sentence with the words '_right now'_.

_There are no second chances._

Greenpod keels over, and drops the knife. L blinks sleepily, confused, and Rae loathes him.

_There are no second chances, but if there were…_

"No!" says the other Shinigami, sounding panicked.

It is the last thing Rae hears before it is erased, screaming, from the world.

* * *

tbc

* * *

notes/warnings

+ if my calculations are correct - and they often aren't - next chapter will be the last substantiative chapter in this half of the story. following that, there will be an epilogue of sorts and then I will bounce over to the second half of the story (which will have a different title and URL but still be on this site). IT SOUNDS COMPLICATED BUT BEAR WITH ME PLEASE GUYS I AM TRYING TO MAKE THIS AS NOT-CRAP AS POSSIBLE.

+ the short version: just check where it says 'tbc' at the end of each chapter. when updates stop being posted to this url there will be a link to the new url.

+ thank you for reading and for being awesome. I love all of you.


	66. Beginning

notes/warnings

+ let's do this thing, you guys.

* * *

**Beginning  
**

* * *

L's training finally kicks in, and he pins his assailant against the ground before realizing that the man is already dead.

_How_?

Spontaneous death?

Then, Rae must have saved him one last time. That is enough. L raises his head, warmth washing over him, grateful and smiling.

Just in time to see Rae crumble into dust. As if it were never alive. As if its body was nothing more than decomposing bones.

"Rae?" L calls out, anxiously. "Is this part of the process?"

Rae doesn't even know what the damn process is. L's mind whirls from anxiety to meltdown. He had never anticipated that things would go _this_ badly.

"Rae," he says, louder, more shakily. "Rae, did you just extend my lifespan?"

He is talking to a pile of rapidly disappearing dust. He is talking to the remains of the only person he has ever been in love with.

No. He's talking to an empty parking lot.

"I'll wait for you to come back," L tells the parking lot, softly. He is shaking. He is completely alone. He doesn't know what happened and there is nobody here to tell him.

_Nobody cares._

"Okay?" he demands of the air. "Okay?"

* * *

Jas brushes the hair from her eyes and makes an explosive, frustrated noise through her teeth. She is really goddamned sick of this world. Of these humans and all of their intricacies and their unpredictability. Of being proved _wrong_, when she was so very very certain.

_You were never supposed to do this_.

_You were supposed to burn in hell. Forever. _

_You were supposed to be my charge forever. _

That is how a hell-god operates. They only hang on to the people they hate. She should never have tried to hang on to Mello, because to do so would have been against the very nature of the universe.

They only hang on to the people they hate, but only if they have a good reason.

_You were never supposed to be able to love_.

She is angry. Annoyed, and bitter. But not panicked. After all, if _he_ goes free, he has to live with the decision he made today. And he has to live with himself.

She's not _completely _stupid. She has contingency plans.

The counter over L's head goes backwards, adding a couple of months. Ross Greenpod lies dead. L will be okay, despite all of his mistakes. He'll get to live and go on and be without Rae. He's lucky, really.

And Jas is lucky too. She has the Prince.

So really, everyone will be okay.

Except Rae.

Well, okay. That isn't true. Nothing is okay and the third world is possibly completely doomed, but right now, Jas has something important to focus on.

She's going to enjoy this as much as she can.

* * *

Rae stares at the ceiling. High on the wall, a fan turns around and around.

After a few moments, it occurs to Rae that staring at a ceiling and contemplating fans isn't something that can be done if one doesn't exist.

With a sudden jolt of joy, it gets abruptly to its feet. Arms, legs, wings, head, fire. Everything is intact.

"I _knew_ it," Rae crows to nobody in particular. "I knew that was just part of the stupid test."

It sounds a lot more confident than it feels. It just…it just sacrificed itself for someone. That isn't something Rae ever should have done. It feels debased, somehow, as if its entire core is missing.

And that dream. Oh god, that boy. Everything about the dream haunts Rae now.

_The boy is me_.

_And the thing outside, on the ground – the sparkling thing – is flat and rectangular and black. Unremarkable. Not sparkling. _

_But revolutionary all the same. _

_This moment was right before everything happened. The beginning and the end._

Still, Rae is alive. And that means that it is the king.

"You're right," a familiar voice says. "That was all part of the test. You still exist, unfortunately."

It's the blonde, angel-like Shinigami from before.

"Hi," Rae says, brightly.

"Hi," probably-Jas replies coldly, and without even a hint of a smile. But that's okay. Rae is _good_ at winning women over. It's just getting warmed up.

"So, what's the procedure?" it asks, sounding both confused and adorable. "You seem to know what's going on here much better than anyone else."

"I would expect so," she says, folding her arms. "I am the queen, after all."

Ah.

Rae considers its options, and then sinks into a low bow.

"Your majesty," it says, reverently.

_When I am king, getting rid of you will be the first thing I do._

"Jas is fine," she says, upgrading her name from probably-Jas to definitely-Jas. "Anyway, how are _you_? You just upended your entire life's philosophy and desecrated your own personality. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Rae says. To be honest, it isn't fine. The dream, the test, the whole being-without-L thing is staring to bother it. Even this _place_ is starting to bother it. It isn't a real church after all. It seems to be a large corrugated-iron shed, almost entirely devoid of furniture.

Rae wonders if maybe this isn't the abandoned church at all. If Jas has transported them somewhere _else_.

"So, are you the god of hell?" Rae asks, because L will definitely want to know.

"Yes."

"Ah," Rae says, shifting from one foot to the other. "That was more of a straight answer than I expected."

"Then have some more straight answers," Jas says, grinning unpleasantly. "One, you're a human, not a Shinigami."

"I know that," Rae interrupts. "I do know who I _am_, thanks. And I have a pretty good memory."

A painfully good memory, for some things. For some things it would be happy to forget, if only it were as easy as giving up a death note.

Rae has always known who it is.

"Two, you're in hell," Jas ploughs on, "and three, you will never be king. That was never even a possibility. You were only ever being tested. Any questions?"

Any _questions_?

Jas looks pleased, like she is enjoying saying such awful, horrible, untrue things.

"I understand," Rae says. "Can I please speak to the king now?"

"Don't you get it?" Jas asks, walking around Rae like a circling shark. "You've never spoken to the king. Everything was a lie."

"No, I was in the real world," Rae says. "L was real. I'm sure of that."

L must have been real. They built a fucking future together.

Jesus fucking hell, how did that happen?

"Yes, that's right. You were in the real world. You interacted with the real world. But you were still my charge."

Rae has the sinking suspicion that she isn't lying. In retrospect, in this awful place, Rae can see the pattern in its recent history. Setting it against L, offering it fame and power, the recurring dream, the steady uncurling of its most tightly-held ideas.

Jesus _Christ_, Rae is fucking screwed.

But not completely.

"Was your charge?" it echoes, finally. "So I passed the test? I'm free? I get to go to the third world, right?"

Jas stares at it.

"I believe you are categorically, unyieldingly evil," she says, darkly. "If I could lock you up in hell forever, I would. And I firmly believe you will end up right back in hell, and I promise you, there will not be another chance."

Rae grins, and abandons its polite façade.

"Fuck you," it says. "Fuck you for everything."

Rae will go to the third world, set up base, and figure out a way to destroy the queen. Then it will figure out how to become the Shinigami king. Then it will find L.

This setback is annoying, but not unworkable. Rae is nothing if not adaptable.

It tries to still its shaking hands. This is okay. This place is transient. It is going to the third world. It got _out_ of hell and everything is fine.

_Got out of hell at what cost?_

Everything is fine. Really.

"Send me to the third world," Rae says. "You have to. You have no jurisdiction over me any more."

"Correct," Jas drawls, twirling her hair around one finger. "I'm surprised you're so at peace with this turn of events. Don't you know that your coach is going to turn back into a pumpkin, Cinderella?"

"That didn't even make sense," Rae says, irritably.

Jas takes a few steps, closing the distance between them.

"What I meant," she enunciates, "is that you can't take anything with you. And that includes that body you're in."

_Oh_.

"No way," Rae says, with certainty. "This is who I am, and this is who I'm staying. This _is_ my body, and you can't fucking have it."

And then it flies, very briskly, out of the shed, and slams the door behind it.

* * *

Rae peers around. It doesn't actually seem to be outside. It seems to be in some other similar-looking warehouse thing. There's another fan up high on the wall. And blood on the floor.

Filled with a sudden, directionless panic, Rae flies onward, through another wall and another shed. And another and another and another. Jas must have transported them to the centre of a maze of sheds.

Doesn't matter. As long as Rae escapes. Because nope, not doing that. Not going back into _that_ old body. Rae is going to live its life and be with L and everything is going to be fine and that would be the opposite of fine.

Another and another and another.

Rae finally stops, after ten minutes of athletic flying. Thank goodness Jas was stupid enough to restore his Shinigami powers before they came here.

_His_?

_Oh yes, that's right. _

Rae has gotten so used to its new life. It doesn't want its old life back. It doesn't want to be that boy, and it doesn't want to be who that boy became.

It sits on the cold concrete floor, and waits for the queen to make her move.

"Haven't you figured it out yet, genius?" Jas asks, as if she was there all along. Rae tenses in preparation for a fight. Or possibly more energetic running-away.

But then Jas points to the blood on the floor.

"No matter how fast you go, you will always end up in the same room," she says. "These are all the same room. Your room. And by 'your room', I mean the one where you lost your final battle in the first world."

"Still nope," Rae says, and flies through the wall.

And runs smack into Jas.

She's in all of these rooms. All of them.

Rae is suddenly terrified.

Jas grabs his…its shoulder, and suddenly it can't move.

"Until next time," she says, sweetly.

"No," Rae begs. "No, please, you don't understand. I _can't_…I…what about L? You like L, right? Everyone likes L. You wouldn't do this to him."

"He is not my responsibility," Jas says.

"Nofuckingpleaselistenlisten_listen_."

"No," Jas replies, callously. "Do better next time, assface."

And then the whole world shifts beneath Rae.

* * *

Jas blinks. The warehouse-sheds have completely vanished. She seems to be hovering in her regular space, near the hell-boxes. She also seems to still be hanging onto her least favourite human in the world.

"Oh," she says. "I guess it doesn't work unless I use your actual name."

She's never actually tried that before. There are some dimensions to her notebook that even she doesn't understand.

"What the fucking fuck?" Rae says, terrified. "Oh my god. Oh my god. No. _No._"

Jas smiles cheerfully. She remembers every single thing Rae has done. Every nasty thing it has ever said to anyone. She has Rae's whole life catalogued and mapped out in her head, right up until this moment.

And although she might have to let him go – _godfuckingdamnit_ – she is not going to forget. And she is not going to stop watching.

Jas believes in good and evil. There is always a dichotomy. There is always some human there to prove a point.

What was it he'd said to Remira, all those years ago?

_Are you happy? Are you getting what you want? Because __I__ am._

No wonder she'd started laughing uncontrollably.

When this is all over, Jas will laugh. And then cry. And then worry about the fact that a page out of her notebook is definitely missing.

Her brief pause seems to be too much for her current charge to comprehend.

"Wow okay, you got me. You know for a minute there, I thought you were actually going to turn me back. Heh. Are we-"

"Fuck you," Jas says abruptly, preparing her powers, because she is definitely doing this. "_Fuck_ you, Light Yagami."

And then she sends him on to the third world, and he doesn't even fucking deserve that.

* * *

_You start writing books again. Shitty books, with fragmented sentences and poor grammar and little narrative flow, but still. You are actually doing something other than endangering people's lives. That's pretty good for you._

_Mostly you write about L and Naomi Misora, because those are your two heroes. The people you would be if you had the option. _

_You are still bitterly disappointed that Misora is dead, and you'll never get to meet her._

_But you write anyway. And you ignore Dwayne when he asks why every incarnation of Matt has long hair and no goggles in your stories._

_You don't have an answer for him. It just feels correct, somehow._

* * *

"And I hope you _don't _do better next time!" Jas yells vindictively into the emptiness.

This year has not been a good year for her.

* * *

Raye Penber paces the room. Then he glares at his computer. Then he glares at his watch. And finally he glares at Mail, who is now busy defacing this particular office. Raye is really fucking sick of Mail. Second-hand grief might not kill a man, but second-hand smoke is another story and Mail is practically a chimney.

He has more important things to worry about right now. It's been five hours, and they haven't heard from L. He isn't answering his phone, and he hasn't come back.

_Soon, he'd said. Soon. _

_This isn't fucking soon._

God, Raye is so sick of all this crap. He buzzes Watari through the intercom for the third time in fifteen minutes.

"I still haven't heard anything, R," Watari tells him, politely.

"Are you worried?" Raye growls. Sometimes he feels like he's the only person left in this team with actual feelings.

"I am…often worried," Watari says, hesitantly.

"He'll come back, though, right?" Raye presses. "L always comes back, even from shit like this."

"Except for that one time where he died," Mail points out helpfully, and Raye has to fight the urge to throw the phone at his head.

The thing is, Raye remembers Grace Backstrum. He remembers that she was killed by what was essentially a bunch of fucked-up supernatural shit that nobody understands. And now L is involved with a bunch of fucked-up supernatural shit that nobody understands, and Raye is actually scared.

He doesn't want to lose anyone else.

"Okay," he says, steadying his voice. "If there was a fight, we'd know about it, right? There would be something on the news."

"Not if it's a little fight," Mail deadpans.

"Shut up."

"Okay."

"But what if," Raye says, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "what if that Shinigami just takes him prisoner and disappears into Shinigami-space or whatever? Or what if they've been attacked."

"Then L will probably fuckin' die. He's out of practice."

"Or what if L voluntarily goes with that thing and abandons us?" Raye wails.

Mail pauses.

"I'd be okay with that," he says.

"You are never okay," Raye tells him, darkly.

"Of course," Mail agrees.

"Did he tell you where they were going?" Raye asks Watari.

"Something about an old, abandoned church," Watari says. "That is all that I know."

Raye groans.

"Well that's next to useless," he says. "There are hundreds of churches within driving distance. We'd have to drive to all of them to figure out which ones are abandoned."

"There are eleven abandoned churches within an hour's drive from here," Mail says suddenly. "Twenty-three within two hours. I can tell you where they are."

Raye stares at him.

"How do you-"

"I've been to all of them," Mail says, as if he's daring Raye to ask him why. "Let's go and find your fuckin' boss."

* * *

L stays where he is. On his knees, in the middle of a rundown carpark, waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

What is he supposed to do? Is he supposed to go somewhere? Speak to someone? How is he supposed to know what he should do for Rae if Rae won't tell him?

_Rae isn't coming back_.

Is it done? Is Rae turning into dust just part of the iniation ceremony? Surely if L waits long enough, Rae will stride back to him with a crown on its head, eyes sparkling, stronger than ever. And then they'll go and…

…play…chess.

_Rae isn't coming back_.

No, that's wrong! Rae is definitely coming back. Even if the hell-god has interfered somehow, surely Rae of all people will be able to get a message to him.

_I knew all along things might turn out like this_.

Okay, so Rae definitely didn't extend his lifespan because Rae isn't that stupid. But if it _did_, then his Shinigami is gone. Erased from all worlds. Dead. Extinguished.

No. They were going to be together.

_Rae isn't coming back._

They _are_ going to be together. If L waits just a little…just a little longer, surely.

Surely.

Mail helps Raye to find L, because it's what Mello would have wanted.

And because L is the only person left in the world who is worth worrying about.

A car pulls in. It belatedly occurs to L that he is huddled next to a dead body, which might not look great. And possibly – hopefully – this car is all to do with Rae's plan.

And god, L hopes Rae had a plan.

Has a plan, damnit.

But no. Raye Penber gets out of the car. And then Mail gets out of the car.

"There you are," Raye says angrily. "Seriously, what the fuck happened? We've been worrying for hours. You could have picked up your phone!"

L struggles to his feet as his employee approaches him.

"You're okay, right?" Raye demands. "What are you waiting for? Let's go home."

L isn't sure that he should leave. Rae might need him to stay right here. He can't stand the thought of letting Rae down now.

_Especially since Rae isn't coming back._

Raye must read something of his mood in his expression, because his voice softens a little.

"What happened?"

L sucks hard on his thumb.

"Rae disappeared," he manages. "I mean, crumbled. I don't…I don't know what happened. I don't know _anything_."

"The Shinigami is gone?" Raye asks, frowning.

"The Shinigami might be gone forever," L says, and isn't that what he's been afraid of all along? Isn't that why he's stayed in this spot, unable to move. "Rae…Rae isn't coming back."

Mail lunges at L suddenly, and pulls him into an awkward, uncomfortable hug.

"I'm sorry," he says, quietly.

* * *

Raye waits for things to go back to normal. L spends a few days on the roof, crouching in the rain. He doesn't eat, and he doesn't sleep. He compulsively checks the news five times an hour. He doesn't take cases. He doesn't speak to anyone, except to ask whether they've heard anything unusual.

_Remember the hell-god_.

Raye wonders if the hell-god has something to do with the Shinigami's disappearance. If so, would that make that Rae was a person in hell? Or are the Shinigami just subordinates to the god of hell?

Just thinking about it makes Raye's head hurt. As if some unseen force is trying to stop him from thinking.

He wonders if this means the hell-god is real.

Wait, of _course_ it is real. Remember Grace Backstrum. She had something to do with something. Yes.

Eventually, L comes in from the roof. There still hasn't been any sign of Rae. No proof that it ever even existed, except for their own memories. Raye wonders how long _those_ will last.

Sometimes Raye Penber gets scared. Sometimes he catches himself wondering how much of this world is real, and whether things actually exist. Sometimes he worries that it will all disappear one day, like Rae.

Naomi is real. Of that he is absolutely certain. And everything else is secondary.

L spends a few days trailing Mail, embarrassingly similar to the way Raye acted when his wife died. Only L doesn't speak at all.

And Raye waits for things to go back to normal.

The Shinigami is gone. All supernatural influences are gone from their collective lives. Surely they can be okay now. Surely they can eventually get back to fighting crime. Near and Buzz are all over the news. Buzz is hailed as a mastermind, a force to be reckoned with. But Near – the new-Near – is hailed as an honest-to-god hero. A savior. A benevolent force of nature. A true 'prince among men' as one particularly silly news program had quipped.

"You're lagging behind," Raye tells L. "These two are so well publicised that people will forget about detective L if you don't start working again soon."

He's not convinced of what he's saying. He just wants to scare L into action. He hates watching someone else grieve; it's like he's falling back down that slippery slope himself.

"I'll start working when Rae comes back," L says.

Raye sighs. Behind L, Mail looks almost properly sad.

And then there's a huge terrorist attack in Ireland and a freak super-storm in Australia and L is spurred into entirely the wrong sort of action. He disappears for a week with Watari, attending both events, desperately scrounging for clues. As if the hell-god is just going to turn up at every big event.

Then he comes home, miserable, knuckles bloodied and clothes ripped, and stands out on the roof again. Watari shakes his head at Raye, and goes to his office.

_Fuck_.

What is the point, if L is going to give up just because he lost one more employee? He managed just fine when he lost Matsuda and Wedy and even Naomi. Rae isn't more important than any of them. They should be getting back to work by now.

"What should I do?" L asks, when they go out to see him. "What on earth am I supposed to do now?"

"You should take on a case," Raye says, trying not to sound impatient. "You should forget about the Shinigami."

For all he knows Rae was going to try and kill them all anyway. He sees no reason to grieve.

And then L starts crying. Actually crying. With _tears_.

"I will never forget," he says, hopelessly. "I have to…I have to try."

"He loved that thing," Mail says to Raye, as if that's some sort of argument.

"And I loved Naomi. I still got by."

Mail punches him, and that's the end of the conversation.

And still, Raye waits for things to go back to normal.

* * *

"I'm scared," L admits quietly, hunching his shoulders against the bitingly cold rain.

He's taken to avoiding Raye Penber. Mail is his only companion, and Mail is a terrible substitute for Rae. But at least Mail seems to understand.

_Everyone turns to you in their times of grief._

_What have I done to you?_

If Rae really is dead, then L killed it. L is responsible. L got Rae killed, along with Naomi and Grace and Wedy and Matsuda. He destroyed Rae's life along with Mello's, and Mail's. He is the worst person in the world. And he is so, so alone.

"Do you think that whoever killed the skeleton is coming back for you?" Mail asks. He lights his cigarette for the thirtieth time, scowling at the raindrops that keep extinguishing it.

"No," L says. "But with Rae, I was safe. Now I feel terribly vulnerable. And I have nobody to talk to."

He cannot tell Mail he is frightened of Light's return, now more than ever. Light is clever. He would have waited in the wings, hidden and watching, until L was defenseless. That's how he works. But L cannot tell Mail about redemption, or about how hells sometimes overlap with the second world. He cannot give Mail any reason to hope.

"I'm fuckin' sorry," Mail says, genuinely. "This shouldn't have happened to you."

"Thank you," L says. His back aches. He wants to go back inside and get into bed and curl up with Rae. He wants to be understood.

"So I don't understand much of this," Mail says conversationally. "But you said that supermodel might know something about Shinigami. Can't she help you either?"

L lifts his head in surprise, because he'd completely forgotten.

Grianna Jones.

Of course.

* * *

When Mary Samuels puts her hand into her mail bag and finds another tape and a note, she just sighs.

"Can't famous people even _converse_ normally?" she complains.

"More viewers," Cheryl says, pleased. "If this goes on, we might even be able to ask for a pay rise."

"He's definitely in love with her," Huck adds, enthusiastically. "Look at this. He wants her to meet his agent at the place where they first laid eyes on each other. Oooooh."

Mary rubs a hand over her face. She isn't surprised Mister L is sending notes, if the alternative is talking to one of her idiot colleagues.

"It's sooo romantic," Huck continues, wringing his hands dramatically. "Mysterious, enigmatic superdetective, and thin, skinny, petite supermodel, courting over-"

"Very gallant choice of adjectives," Mary says, drily. "Good job."

"Thanks!"

"That was sarcasm," Cheryl informs him helpfully.

Mary ignores both of them. They'll _have_ to broadcast the message, of course. The boss would fire her on the spot if she turned down such a nice little earner.

And if L is still sending messages, then he must have survived last time. He's the greatest detective in the world for a reason, after all.

"Okay," she says out loud, even though neither of the others is listening. "Let's do this."

* * *

The alleyway just off of 17 Baker Street isn't a particularly glamorous meeting place. But it is an address that no-one could possibly know or guess from the message.

He's getting smarter.

Grianna examines the worn-out, mask-wearing man in front of her.

"I am starting to suspect you are the real thing," she says, calmly. "The real L. Or at least, one of the people who has genuine claim to that particular alias."

He just shrugs. No answer. No glib quip. No deflecting. Whether he is L or not, her suspicions are irrelevant. Whether or not he is L is irrelevant.

Grianna always wanted to believe L to be a good, kind person. A person who would come running for help if someone's life was in danger. Any mother would want to believe their child was employed by a good man, a caring man.

"I lost them," he says. "The person important to me. I lost them."

Grianna isn't surprised.

"Hell?" she asks, without sympathy. She is no longer capable of sympathy.

"I don't know," he says. "They…they died right in front of me. And they once told me that if they died, they would disappear from all of the worlds. I fear they will not…will never come back."

There is a hitch to his voice. He is upset. His grief is new.

"I don't even know if they really were in hell," he says. "I don't know if they were lied to, or-"

"All people in hell are lied to," Grianna says. "I can tell you that with absolute certainty."

The man stares at her quietly.

"How do you know if someone is in hell?" he says. "Can you tell me _that_ with any certainty?"

Grianna points to her eyes.

"Make a deal," she says, and then she realizes. His life span is visible. "You don't have a notebook any more?"

"No."

"Oh. When you have Shinigami eyes, those in hell have their names and life spans replaced with unintelligible squiggles. Not that it will help you, if your precious person is already gone."

"They are," he says, miserably. "I just want to know. If they were in hell, then there's a chance that they are still alive. That they haven't been completely erased. That they're in the third world now, even as we speak."

Grianna folds her arms.

"What would you do, if you knew?" she asks. "Kill yourself and go to the third world?"

He tilts his head to one side and considers this.

"I think so," he says. "I would have to make sure my colleagues were okay first, but I believe I would do that."

"Huh," Grianna folds her arms across her chest. "Well, there are no similarities that I've noticed between the different hells. Nothing that you could look for. Nothing that would give away the work of the hell-god to someone without Shinigami eyes. I cannot give you any hints as to whether you should hold out hope. If you still had the killer notebook, maybe I could help."

"Why?" he asks immediately, curiously.

_Oh, _Grianna realizes. _So you did keep part of it, after all._

_Very clever._

"Well, there's something I've always wanted to try," she says. "But I haven't, because the chance of success is laughably slim. But if you are desperate, and you still have some of the paper, why don't you try writing your own name down."

"What would I look for in the third world?" the man asks.

"Nothing. Write down visiting the hell-god as a condition of your death."

"Will that _work_?"

Will it work? Does _anything_ in this godforsaken place work? The god of hell is infinite, and monstrously powerful. They can control space, and minds, and realities. They are endless and roaring, and they do not _care_ about people like Grianna Jones and sad little maybe-L. Grianna has spent her whole second life fighting them, and achieved absolutely nothing for her efforts.

But.

"It will get their attention" she says. "That is the best that anyone can hope for."

* * *

L returns quietly. He comes into the office where Raye and Mail are working and sits down at a spare computer in silence. His shoulders are still more hunched than usual, his head still low. He does not eat. His typing is louder than normal, as if he has lost some of the fine motor control in his fingers.

Raye wonders if they're all actually fucked now. He could make a living on his own, if he had to. He could freelance as a spy. He could probably market himself as a private detective, although the job market is pretty harrowing these days. _Everyone_ wants to be a private detective. Everyone wants to be the next L or Buzz or Near. Some department stores are even selling L dress-up costumes, which are essentially Sherlock Holmes costumes with a big question mark over the face area.

Raye would bet his life that none of L's fans have even the slightest idea what their hero is really like.

"Hey," he says, quietly, as if trying to converse with a drowsing child. "Hey, there's a serial murderer-kidnapper operating around the Chelmsford area. Do you want to look into it?"

"Near left a message for you," Mail adds. "I mean, Buzz left a message for you. He's abroad chasing a big-time fuckin' fraudster or something. He wants you to deal with the Chelmsford case."

Raye stares at his youngest colleague.

"You didn't tell _me_ anything about that," he says, a little put out.

L turns his head slowly, and looks at Mail.

"What did you tell Buzz?" he asks, voice deathly quiet.

"I told him to get fucked."

The corner of L's mouth trembles, like he's trying to smile and he's forgotten how.

"Thank you," he whispers.

* * *

And then, without Matsuda. Without Wedy, or Rem, or Naomi, or Rae. Without Mello – and without most of Mail's soul – L's team sets out to catch another criminal.

* * *

The murderer-kidnapper targets families with disabled children. He's struck in the Chelmsford area seven times. He leaves the dead bodies of the parents behind. He abducts the children.

L approaches the case as he would any other. He visits a few of the crime scenes. He takes photographs and tries to identify behavioural patterns. Raye speaks with neighbours and other potential witnesses. Mail generally stands around staring forlornly into the distance.

And then, like any other case, they go back to headquarters. L gathers all of the evidence they've collected, and pins it to the walls of his office. The work feels intensely familiar. For a moment, it is as if no time as passed, as if nothing has changed. Sometimes L makes a quiet comment to the giant creature he half-expects to find right behind him.

Sometimes L feels lonely. It occurs him just how easy it would be to just open his watch and pick up a pen. It would be over in seconds. He would maybe have answers, and he might even get to see Rae again.

But only if Rae really is a person in hell, _and_ if Rae as a person in hell successfully passed their test and was sent to the third world, _and_ if Rae as a person-formerly-in-hell hasn't died or moved on from the third world yet.

Percentage likelihood of L seeing Rae again in the near future: 6%.

Percentage likelihood of L seeing Rae again ever: 18%.

And there's Mail. L is supposed to look after his son.

L spends another fifteen minutes staring at the walls, and then slowly makes his way to Mail's bedroom.

* * *

Sometimes, Mail is convinced that everyone else in this godfuckinforsaken world is only here to annoy him. He's sprawled on his bed, one cigarette behind his ear and a second in his pocket, tattered sketch of Mello laid reverently beside him. He's trying to pray, trying to bargain with every theoretical god he can think of for Mello's life, Mello's safety.

And fuckin' L is crouching at his feet, waiting patiently.

"I'm not helping you solve the case," Mail says, eventually, once he gives up ignoring L.

"What would you do if I left?" L asks, by way of response.

Mail rubs at his eyes. Sometimes, when he isn't paying attention, he can still feel the pull of elastic across the back of his head. Sometimes he's momentarily bemused by the fact that he can touch his eyes directly.

Sometimes he vaguely remembers who he used to be.

But the important thing is, even when he remembers, he _doesn't care._

"Probably not do anything differently," Mail replies. Then he processes the implications behind L's question a little better, and sits up abruptly. "Why?"

L stares at him, steadily.

"There is something I can do," he says. "If I do it, there is a small chance I may find Rae. There is a slightly larger chance that I would at least learn of Rae's fate. But if I do it, I will definitely die. Given your decision to remain in the second world, we may not see each other again for a very long time."

"Did you find some sort of workaround in the notebook?" Mail asks, so interested that he forgets to swear. "Like, writing 'will die and find Rae', or something?"

"Or something," L says. "I'm not involving you in the mechanics, but I did want your opinion. I have a duty towards you."

"Duty?" Mail echoes.

L looks away for a moment, gazing around the room. Mail is proud of his room. Every blank space on the wall is filled with 'Mihael Keehl'. If he added any more, it would become illegible. Mail has done as much as he can.

And on the dresser is the gun he used to kill Kiyomi Takada.

But L doesn't look at the things Mail is proud of. His eye lingers on the stained, crusty bedspread, the mildew on the carpet, the filth on the walls. And then he grimaces.

"Yes," he says, almost to himself. "I shouldn't leave you alone."

"Fuck that!" Mail says, outraged.

L blinks at him.

"What-"

"No, seriously, fuck _that_," Mail spits. "I hate you. I hate everything about you. How dare you come in here and talk about the person you fuckin' love like it's easy, like it's something you can just give away. How dare you even _suggest _that you might fuckin' stay here with me when you have a _chance_, an actual goddamned _chance_, and you might not even _try_?"

Mail is panting. He can hear the blood rushing to his face, the arrhythmical thump of his own heart. He wants to punch L, wants to dig in his nails and draw blood. He wants to destroy the universe, take it apart and build his damn time machine. He wants Mello to come back for one second – one _second_ – so that he can breathe.

And L says _I shouldn't leave you alone_.

Mail wants L to die.

Because Mail would die in a heartbeat, even if it was only a one-in-a-million chance.

"But I love you, too," L says, sounding surprised, as if Mail is the one saying incomprehensible things. "You were modeled after me. You suffered for my cause. You are one of my children, and you are the only one I have left."

"You should have had him," Mail croaks, throat tightening. He doesn't understand anything else L has said. He doesn't understand what it means to love someone in a way that doesn't sacrifice everything else.

Mail's is not a mindless grief. It is a chosen grief. A decided grief. A mindful grief.

And it will never, ever end.

"I would have liked to have had both of you," L says.

"You should do it," Mail says, overwhelmed. "You should go and find your skeleton. I don't care if we never fuckin' see each other again."

L hesitates for a moment. It belatedly occurs to Mail that maybe it hurts L, to hear something like that.

Maybe. He doesn't understand.

"Okay," L replies. "I will, soon."

* * *

L throws himself into the Chelmsford case. He has Raye and Mail investigate empty buildings and warehouses around the area, in the hope of finding the kidnapped children. He sends Watari into the poorer areas of Chelmsford, posing as a sleazy door-to-door salesperson, to plant video devices around the homes of likely victims.

By the time Buzz calls, L has narrowed his suspicions down to just three suspects.

"I expected you to be more precise," he tells L, by way of greeting. "Trying to protect an entire town? You're acting just like _him_."

"Is that why you wanted me to take this case?" L asks. "You didn't want new-Near to have it?"

"I don't imagine you've got much time left," Buzz says, ignoring the question. "Near is currently in Saudi Arabia, but he'll be back within a week. And he will be all over this case."

"I am not getting involved in your petty rivalry," L says, diplomatically.

"I have no interest in rivalry," Near says, sounding almost indignant.

It's probably good for him, to actually have feelings for another human being. Even if only resentment and jealousy. Near was always too cold, too removed, too much of everything L had tried to be.

Humanity is important. Kindness is important. L cannot bring himself to dislike anyone who would prioritize such things.

"I see," L says. "I will do my best."

Then he goes to hang up, and thinks better of it.

"Buzz," he continues. "Nate. I have something to ask of you."

There isn't anyone else he can ask.

"What is it?"

"I suspect I may die quite soon. If I do, I want you take the mantle of L in my place. And…I want you to employ Watari and the remainder of my team in my stead, if they agree."

Mail probably will not agree. But Raye will want cases and secure employment, and someone has to take care of Watari.

This is the best that L can offer them.

"Yes," Buzz replies. "I can do that, yes."

* * *

Six days later, they find the murderer-kidnapper. And a dozen terrified, orphaned children. Mail isn't sure how L figured it out, and he really doesn't fuckin' care.

They drop the children off at a local orphanage. One of them cries. There are tulips growing under the huge, wrought iron fence that marks the boundary of the orphanage courtyard.

"Hey," Mail says to crying-child. "There are flowers here. Maybe you'll make a friend. Maybe you'll…"

He cuts himself off, amazed at his own stupidity.

_What am I fuckin' saying?_

* * *

"You did it," Raye says, wearily, when they get back. "You solved a case on your own, without Rae's help."

"Yes," L says.

* * *

And it goes on. L takes on a notorious counterfeiter before the week ends. He finishes the case in three days, earning himself acclaim with police forces in several countries. And then he takes the case of a serial thief, who turns out to be a Robin Hood-esque woman who sells all her treasures to support charities. She knows Wedy by name, and L doesn't ask how.

Working cases without Rae is strange. L feels like a person walking without crutches for the first time, even though their leg is still broken.

He gives Raye and Mail significant pay rises and doesn't tell them. He wants them to be provided for, whatever they choose to do.

And then another serial killer makes the news, and L promises himself this is the last time. One more case, and he'll use his precious scrap of notebook paper.

It's time.

* * *

Jas realises what has happened.

Jas panics, does the only thing she can do.

* * *

The day after they catch the serial killer, L shows up in the kitchen unannounced.

"I'm afraid the key lime pie isn't quite ready yet," Watari tells him, gently. L's hair is messier than usual, but his eyes are still bright. He must be sleeping at least sporadically.

Watari worries all the time, but there isn't anything he can say. He isn't sorry. He doesn't regret making L into the hero the world needed.

L seems to get lost for a moment, staring intently at the marble-topped cooking bench as if he's trying to remember something important. Then he touches his upper lip and turns to face Watari.

"I wanted to say thank you," he says, gently. "And I wanted to say that I will not be needing any more cake from now on."

Watari clamps down on the initial impulse to worry, to beg, to touch L's arm.

And when confronted with a seven year old who had just killed his own mother, Watari had clamped down on the impulse to be compassionate, to walk away.

If the forces of good are not as cruel as the forces of evil, they cannot succeed.

And it isn't the first time L has come to Watari talking about his own imminent death. But this time there is no Light, no terror, no sadness in L's eye. No unchecked terrorists. But there _is_ someone that L misses, someone who is already dead.

And there is a substantial promise of a third world.

"Are you sure?" Watari asks, sounding only obliging.

"Yes," L says. "Very soon I will disappear."

"I would go with you," Watari says.

Even in the first world, Watari didn't intend to die by L's side. It only happened that way. L was already a man, already capable of looking after himself, already thoroughly shaped by all of Watari's ideals, as well as his own.

He is a different shape, now. This second world has softened him and saddened him, driven him to madness and back again.

"I do not request that, nor do I require it," L replies. "Your choices are your own. Buzz will employ you if you desire. Or you could start another orphanage."

They are living with a daily reminder of how well Watari's last orphanage worked out.

Still. Near and Mello were exemplary in the first world. Maybe he will.

"I understand," Watari says. "Good luck."

_I hope you find what you're looking for._

_I hope you don't change too much._

_The world still needs you._

"Good bye," L replies, and smiles.

* * *

Raye orders takeaway Japanese food from a store in the next suburb. The three of them sit in one of the east-facing offices and pretend to watch television together.

Or at least, L and Raye pretend. Mail just lays face-down on the floor and doesn't speak to either of them.

L keeps touching his watch nervously. He tries to inhale the feeling of being here with the remaining members of his team, celebrating their latest victory, familiar and comfortable. He eats five sticky rice cakes, even though they're stodgy and not very sweet.

"I'm pretty sure there's peanut butter in this sushi roll," Raye says, frowning. "This is the least Japanese Japanese food I've ever had."

Naomi always valued authentic cuisine. Maybe that's why Raye sticks to the bad replicas now. Maybe it's his own small way of mourning her.

Maybe, if she were here tonight, L would be scared. If Matsuda were here, he would definitely be scared. If Rae were here, he would be desperate to live. L would fight death tooth and nail, if Rae were here.

L hasn't been thinking clearly. He's been desperate, lonely, and frightened. And here and now, for the first time, he is a little bit safer, a little bit warmer, a little bit less lonely. And he finally has clarity. Saying goodbye to Watari brought him to his senses.

If L writes his name in the notebook, L might just die. L might disappear and never come back. And that is not an acceptable price to pay just for the chance to be with Rae.

"Did you ever wish for a different career?" L asks Raye.

They could go on like this, the three of them. The three widowers, fighting crime and saving lives. L battling Buzz for the brightest part of Near's shadow. The occasional Sunday afternoon where nothing is happening.

"I don't know," Raye says, smiling a little. "When I was really young, I remember wanting to be a racecar."

"A noble pursuit," L says, and hopes that Raye understands that he isn't serious.

Raye chuckles and L feels pleased with himself.

"Yeah. And then when I first came to the second world, I wanted to be a…what do you call someone who makes a career out of killing Light Yagami?"

"L," Mail mumbles into the carpet, by way of answer, and L feels like he can finally breathe.

Dying is not an acceptable price to pay just for the chance to be with Rae. They are here and they are together.

* * *

And when the evening is over, Raye goes upstairs to bed and L kisses Mail in the forehead and goes to his room and locks the door.

And then he takes the scrap of death note paper out of his watch and lays it on the table. Because this is what he has decided.

Dying is not an acceptable price to pay_ just_ for the chance to be with Rae. But he loves this world, he loves so many of the people in it, and that is why he has to die anyway. Somebody has to stop the god of hell before they ruin everything. And this is L's only chance of getting to them.

His phone buzzes and the display shows an incoming text message from Mail. Two words. _Good luck_.

Yes. He needs luck. All of the brains in the world will not save him now.

L takes a solitary toffee from his pocket. He wants to die eating dessert. He wants to die eating dessert and in the room he spent so much time with Rae. He wants to die nowhere near Kira, and he's getting all of those wishes met. He's already lucky.

He uncaps a fresh pen and does not hesitate.

"_L Lawliet dies and meets with the god of hell immediately upon dying."_

He is going to miss this world so much. From the window in this room, it almost looks like the rain outside is easing.

And then, quietly, abruptly, L Lawliet dies.

* * *

Well.

Jas smiles. She should have expected this. L is a genius, and now that she actually needs his help, he is practically begging for her attention.

So she takes him. She snatches him from his fleeting path to the third world, and brings him into her house.

Everyone turns to L when things go wrong. Even the god of hell.

* * *

L tilts his head. No time has passed, but his room has disappeared, replaced by a cozy little cottage kitchen, complete with teapot boiling on the stove. A woman sits at the table, her white-blond hair drawn up into a bun, mug in hand.

_This isn't right_, he thinks, morosely. _This looks like another ordinary world._

But then he sees her wings, as white as the wall, stretching from ceiling to floor.

"Are you a Shinigami?" he whispers.

His voice works just fine. He is dead, but he is fine. The floor under his feet feels like ordinary vinyl. There are thousands of tiny photographs on the walls.

"I started out as a Shinigami," the woman says. "I'm not sure what I am, any more. But I believe you wanted to see me?"

"Hell-god," L murmurs, suddenly understanding.

He feels a rush of loathing, a sudden burning desire for revenge. He wants to take the pot and bring it down over her head. He wants to demand Rae. He wants to demand an explanation for Naomi. He wants to take this place apart and find Mello.

"I know what you want," the hell-god says. "But what will you _do_?"

L grinds his teeth. Okay. She can read his mind. If she is truly a tyrant, then she knows he hates her. She is probably planning his eternal torment as he thinks.

"I plan everyone's eternal torment. But sometimes I never get a chance to use those plans."

"So there are infinite worlds?" L demands.

"Or perhaps there are only three," she replies, and her words are not as evasive as they sound.

_So there is a third world_.

L pauses to consider this. The god of hell is giving him information. Either she likes him, or she is trying to manipulate him. Either way, that pales into insignificance next to what he has just learned.

"Are the others in the third world?" L asks. "How does it work? Is it different?"

"So many questions," she says, smoothly. "But my time is limited. I will answer one question only, and it must be specific."

It's tempting just to ask her what happened to Rae, but that isn't the only reason he came here. And if there time is going to be truncated after he asks one more question, then he isn't going to ask until he's said his piece.

"What you are doing is wrong," he says. "Manipulating the second world is wrong. You are hurting people. You ruined lives. You have _killed _at least one of my friends."

The hell-god looks almost sympathetic.

"I do what I am meant to do," she says. "What I have always done. I cannot change my function. And I have only killed one person who was not my charge. And... that was a mistake."

For someone who only wants to answer one question, she is giving away a lot of information for free.

"Then Rae was your charge."

"Rae was a _construct_," she says, holding up one hand. "There is no person called 'Rae'."

"But there was a real person who was Rae in their hell," L says.

"Correct."

Then Rae either continues to be in hell or is in the third world. Either way, it is not gone. L suddenly feels lighthearted, happy, _okay_. Everything is okay.

"Don't be like that," nameless hell-god says. "That person was, and is, dangerous. I strongly, _strongly_ advise you to give up on Rae. Don't try to find them. Just accept what you had and move on."

"Don't tell me what to do," L says, politely.

If she's telling him not to contact Rae, then Rae _must_ be out of hell. L grins to himself. He is going to find Rae, and they are going to be together. He is never going to stop looking for Rae.

"That is a terrible idea and you should rethink it."

"Please stop commenting on my thoughts."

The hell-god smiles.

"You realize I could crush you completely, without even lifting a finger."

"Oh," L says. "Are you allowed to hurt people who are not your charges?"

_If you ever hurt Mail, or Raye, I will find you and I will destroy you. Did you get that, hell-god?_

"I got that," she says. "And my name is Jas."

"I don't care."

There are so many things he could ask. He wants to know if Mello is okay. He wants to know if he will get to see his family again. He wants to know if the third world is better than the first or the second.

And perhaps, a lesser detective would ask those questions. But the hell-god is the most powerful force L has ever met, and there is something even more demanding weighing on his mind.

"Why did you bring me here?" L says. "Meeting you should not be within the mechanics of the notebook. You brought me here yourself."

"Yes. I wanted to thank you," the god of hell – Jas – says, "I used you to test a lot of people. I know it made your life difficult at times, and I wanted to express my gratitude. I'm going to erase the memory of your real name from everyone who is in the second world, in hell, or who was recently in hell."

_That's not the real reason you brought me here_, L thinks.

"I would appreciate that," he says, out loud. "Please do that. But no matter what, I want Rae to remember my name."

Jas gives him an agonised look.

"Seriously," she asks. "Haven't I just explained to you that Rae is bad news? And anyway-"

"Mello, too," L says, abruptly. "Mihael Keehl. I need him to remember my name in case he gets out of hell. I can use that to identify him."

Jas eyes him.

"Optimistic, aren't you?"

"Parents often are," L retorts. It's sort of surreal, arguing with an all-powerful god-being.

"Fine," Jas says, waving her hand. "One more thing, though. I can't erase memories in the third world except for people who have recently passed out of hell. Therefore, there is someone there who will also know your real name."

L's heart takes a dive.

"Who?"

"I think you know who," Jas says, sounding apologetic.

L thinks. It can't be Light. Light used Rem to kill him, so Light never learned his real name. Which means…it must be…

She's not in hell. _She's not in hell_.

_What have you done?_

"Why can't you erase memories in the third world?" he chokes. "Is there another god of hell there?"

_Someone I can appeal to?_

"No. Only me," Jas says, chewing on her lower lip. "The thing is, well, it has recently come to my attention that a page from my notebook was given to a human in the third world."

"Your notebook, which does what?"

"The only damage control I could do was to remove the notebook's ability to cause omniscience in that world," Jas continues, ignoring him. "Which means I can't see everything in that world, either. And I don't know who has the stolen page."

L tries to imagine what someone could do with an omniscient notebook.

He tries to imagine, and then his imagination runs away screaming.

"Just a minor problem, then," L says, horrified.

_If that notebook could previously cause omniscience, what else can it do?_

_Omnipotence?_

_This is just like Kira, only worse._

"I'll sort it out," Jas says. "Once they start using it, I'll be able to track them down relatively quickly. Anyway, I have no more time to spare. Would you like me to send you back to the second world? I can reverse your death, just this once."

L stares at her. In the third world is Rae, a more powerful and hidden version of Kira, and a woman who badly needs to be sent back to jail.

"No," he says, quietly. "Send me on. I'm ready."

"Very well," Jas says, and smiles.

* * *

the end*

* * *

*of part one**

**except for the epilogue

* * *

**please read - important fic information**

+ this fic is ending, but the story is _not over_.

+ in a few weeks (or maybe sooner), there will be an epilogue to this story focusing on a handful of minor characters.

+ at around this time, the second half of the main story will also be posted on this website. it will be a fic called 'Third Time Lucky', and I will link to it from Second Chances.

+ this fic won't be a sequel, it will be the _rest of this story_.

+ for those of you feeling as if certain arcs weren't completed, that's because they're intended to carry over into TTL.

* * *

a/n

+ a shout out to every single one of my readers for being so fucking awesome I can't even stand it. even if you never reviewed, even if you only read like one chapter, I think you are great and I am grateful for your time.

+ and a further shout out to an ffn user called scrambled-eggs-at-midnight, who way back in September 2010 - when chapter eight had just been posted - said 'Rae reminds me of Light, in a way...'.

+ and a nod to all of you who predicted some or all of this particular ending. I really loved hearing your theories.

+ okay guys, see you in a couple of weeks.


	67. Epilogue

notes/warnings

+ this is the epilogue. it is the story of Soichiro, Near, and another familiar person. it is also a story about botany.

+ I would recommend reading this epilogue if you want a slightly more complete picture of certain parts of this story. however if you don't want to read this story, please scroll to the bottom of this page for a link to _Third Time Lucky_. **edit: **for some reason my links aren't working. please go to my profile for link.

+ warning for a few gender-based slurs in someone's angry rant.

+ _the apple does not fall far from the tree._

* * *

**Antidote**

* * *

The bar is old and filthy. Every horizontal surface is blanketed by an inch of grease. The air is still and filled with acrid smoke. None of the patrons talk aloud, but most of them are murmuring quietly to their companions.

Nobody makes eye contact.

This is a place for people to escape. This is a place for damned people, filthy people. For people who have let down their entire families, who have failed in their duties to the world.

And in one corner, Soichiro Yagami orders another beer. He's been coming to this bar for a while now, but he never speaks with any of the other patrons. He sits opposite Greg, a white-haired man who is technically Soichiro's manager, but all he really does is handle phone calls so that Soichiro doesn't have to talk to people.

_What would he even have to say to anyone?_

If he started apologizing he would never be able to stop. Half the people in the second world are here because of his son.

Soichiro is a danger to everyone he meets.

"I took a call from an interesting fellow," Greg says, knocking back another whiskey. "Thought you might at least like to hear his proposal."

"No," Soichiro replies. "I don't."

He's tired of being a renowned gunman. He is tired of being Casey Maddox. He is tired of people treating him like he's a trained assassin, even though he hasn't shot at another person since the day he died. Soichiro usually hires himself out as a security guard, or on his worst days, as entertainment. Never as an assassin.

Soichiro has never killed anyone. _Never_. Except that he has. Because he unknowingly created a terrible weapon and it grew up and went around slaughtering people all on its own. And that same blood runs in Soichiro's veins. The precious child that he raised with love and care and support was evil, and that means Soichiro is evil.

And all he can do is try to keep people safe. There is no way that he can even begin to atone, but he desperately wants to. He wants to make things okay.

He wants to breathe again.

How can someone atone for their own child? How can someone ever repent for so much death and pain and heartache? There is no way. It is impossible.

And thus, there is no hope for Soichiro Yagami. All he can do is survive one more day, protect one more person, and hope and pray that he never falls the way Light fell.

_The apple never falls far from the tree._

"He said you'd refuse," Greg replies, obliviously. "He also said that you might change your mind if I mentioned his name."

"What was his name?" Soichiro asks, gruffly, raising his glass to his mouth.

"Near," Greg replies.

Soichiro nearly chokes on his watered-down beer.

* * *

Eric Spitz opens up his laptop and scratches his chin. He has over one hundred new messages. Forty are from his adorable but wordy girlfriend, and the rest are from his dozens of friends. In a few minutes he'll respond to all of them, with careful attention to detail.

But for the moment, he opens another browser tab and accesses his favourite search engine.

'_Transparent girl'_ he types.

This brings up roughly seventy-two million hits, of which at least seventy-one million, nine hundred thousand ninety-nine hundred are porn.

Eric sighs and tries again.

'_Is it normal to hallucinate transparent girl out of corner of eye?'_

This brings up a few supernatural-themed forums and a handful of news articles about a firefighter who died two months ago with an exploded heart.

Eric glances at the girl sitting daintily at the foot of his bed.

"You're not going to kill me, right?" he asks.

"Of course not," she replies.

"Cool," Eric says, and gets on with answering his friends.

* * *

A very handsome blonde woman is waiting for him just outside the scheduled meeting place. She has a gun in her hand, and she makes no attempt to conceal it. Soichiro is somewhat comforted by her openness.

"Thank you for coming," she says, politely.

Soichiro doesn't recognize her, but that doesn't necessarily mean he never knew her. He knows that Near was the name of the man who captured his son, and he knows that man did not kill his son. That doesn't mean anything, though, because detectives consider handles to be trophies, and _this _Near is not that Near. This is a new Near. Someone different. A hero. A prince among men.

Soichiro has met someone matching that description before. When he was starting out, as a police cadet, he met a young man called Ishida who was everything Soichiro had hoped to be. Manners are free and kindness is easy, but Ishida was an honest-to-god hero. He attended a would-be school shooting and got every child out alive.

And then they graduated and lost touch. Soichiro doesn't know which world he is in.

"Our proposal is quite simple," the woman says. "Near requires your expertise to help vindicate Juan Glenford, a man who was wrongfully accused of murder."

Soichiro raises an eyebrow.

"I thought Near was busy with serious crimes," he says. "Why would he bother with this man?"

"Miscarriage of justice is a serious crime," she replies. "And Near bothers with everyone. Your payment will be as previously discussed. Do you accept?"

There is no room for argument or negotiation.

"Yes," Soichiro answers.

* * *

Eric is cute, in a generic sort of way. He seems to be kind and clean and well-mannered. He's not her type, but that doesn't matter. She doesn't have to love him. He only has to love her.

If he loves her, she'll be free.

Eric is curled up on the floor, chatting with his two-bit girlfriend. Ugh.

But she goes and sits with him, anyway. Truth be told, she's happy to be near him. She's been alone for so, so long, and everyone she meets dies.

But… maybe Eric won't let her down.

* * *

Like L, Near's physical appearance is underwhelming. But unlike L, he meets Soichiro in person as soon as the contract is signed.

"Casey Maddox, I presume."

Near is tall and skinny, with short curly hair. His entire face is obscured by a comical looking robot-mask. His voice is obscured by the mechanical-sounding filter built into the mask. He is wearing unremarkable jeans and a sweater. The blonde woman – Halle – stands at the door of his office, watching Soichiro carefully.

And here, with this ordinary-looking man who is supposed to be the embodiment of all that is good, Soichiro feels utterly ashamed.

"No," he says, hanging his head. "If you want to work with me, you should know who I really am."

"I already know who you really are," Near replies. "Sorry for invading your privacy, but I can't work with someone without knowing their real name."

"Then you know about my son," Soichiro says.

He feels like he's talking to Ishida all over again.

"I know about your son," Near replies.

The shame is starting to manifest as physical pain. Soichiro sinks to his knees, tears burning in the corners of his eyes.

"I am sorry," he says. "I am so, so, so, so, so sorry."

* * *

Halle lets Soichiro have his breakdown for a good twenty minutes before she moves him to an office and gives him a computer.

"Your job is to research the Glenford case," she says, tersely. "Use your extensive knowledge of firearms to see if you can come up with any defense."

"Wait," Soichiro replies. "Haven't you already ascertained that he is innocent?"

"Not yet," Halle replies. "Please use the call button at your left to contact me if you need anything, but do not be wasteful of my time. We are busy."

She leaves before he can say another word, closing the door behind her. Halle still isn't sure about involving ex-Chief Yagami. She can understand Near's reasons for doing so, of course, but this could all end badly very easily. She suspects the ex-Chief still hasn't come to terms with what Light did.

She runs into Gevanni in the hall, and they walk to Near's office together, exchanging notes.

"Any news on the Reef case?" Gevanni asks, brightly.

"Yes. We arrested his brother this morning. But since he's based in a country that still implements the death penalty, we'll be flying him out to London in a few hours for him to be tried there."

That is the agreement that any government must make to gain Near's help. No deaths. No killing. Not even for the murderers.

"Excellent," he says. "I figured out that the Sarvis case is fraudulent. It's not possible for someone to fall that far and land in cold seawater without passing out. But Freddy couldn't figure out the Plate case, so that's come back to us."

"Damn," Halle replies. Freddy is usually pretty reliable. He is by far their best investment this year.

Still, nobody is infallible.

No deaths is an excellent policy, even when dealing with convicted criminals.

"Oh, I wanted to talk to you about the latest forgery case," she says. "Can you have a look at the files I sent and tell me what you think?"

"Sure thing. Hey, has Near made any progress on the exploding heart case?"

"No, but I made up a file this morning. He'll be onto it soon."

"Seriously?" Gevanni asks. "But he's already dealing with twenty-two separate cases. One of these days he's going to burn out."

Gevanni looks a little too worried. He looks like the way Halle feels, when Near works himself into the ground and saves everyone and never even comes up for air.

_You're in love with him too_, Halle realizes.

She probably knew that already. Near doesn't demand love, but he kind of attracts it. Halle would do anything for him. She even thinks of him the way he asked her to think of him. She'd die for him, but the best part is, she doesn't think she'll have to.

"Speaking of burning out, did you tape today's episode of Dazed Lives?"

"Yes," Gevanni says. "We now have four hundred unwatched episodes on tape. Seriously, none of us are ever going to have the free time to watch those."

"One day we will," Halle replies.

One day, they are going to save the world.

* * *

Juan Glenford is charged with one count of first degree murder. The victim was his fiancée, Marissa. A neighbor heard them arguing, and was worried enough to record audio of the entire altercation.

Halle has provided him with extensive file notes, and a copy of the audio track. With a little more research, Soichiro learns that Glenford's weapon was a Glock 17, a pistol of such sentimental value to him that he carried it with him from the first world.

The wound in Marissa's head is consistent with the use of the Glock. Soichiro brings up the photograph of the bullet they retrieved in the autopsy, and it matches almost perfectly. Friends of Glenford's report seeing him with his gun only days before the attack.

Soichiro can't see how he can possibly prove Glenford innocent. He listens to the tape, which is a whole lot of Glenford swearing violently and loudly, and Marissa crying.

"Fuck you fuck you _fuck you, you stupid bitch!_"

"I will fucking _kill you_!"

The shot rings out after four minutes of one-sided yelling. Glenford had recently discovered that Marissa was having an affair with his best friend. His version of the story is that he was angry and yelling and threatening, but that an unknown assailant had hidden inside his house - in a cupboard in the same room that they had the argument – who had emerged to shoot Marissa at the last minute.

Nobody in their right mind would believe Glenford.

Is that what Near is? Such a bleeding heart that he cannot turn away even the most ridiculous of requests?

No. If that were the case, Near would have gone bankrupt long ago.

So what is it, then? What does he see that Soichiro can't see? There must be something else. He has to keep searching.

Soichiro is not cut out for detective work, but for a whole glorious afternoon, he forgets about apples and trees.

* * *

Eric is miserable. He's never been dumped before. His friends want to take him out and cheer him up and look after him, but all he wants to do is be alone.

"What's wrong, Eric?" the ghost girl asks.

"Alana and I aren't together any more. She said I wasn't spending enough time with her."

"Oh," the girl replies. "Is that because of me?"

"Probably," Eric wails. "I've been spending too much time with you."

"Or maybe you haven't been spending enough time with me," the ghost suggests.

She places one hand on Eric's back, right under his neck. Her touch is cool and feathery and comforting. Eric leans back.

"You're a pretty awesome ghost, did you know that?" he says. He doesn't really know what he's saying. He's just confused and distressed right now.

"Do you love me?" the ghost asks.

Eric grins, in spite of himself.

"What? No, of course not. I mean, I've only just met you."

"Oh," she says.

She looks different, now. Her eyes are red. She looks angry, and oh hell, now Eric is having even more girl problems than he thought possible.

"Look," he explains. "You're really great, it's just that I'm not into you."

"I hate you," says the ghost.

Eric feels a sudden, stabbing pain in his chest.

Then he doesn't feel anything at all.

* * *

When Soichiro finally figures it out, the sun is already rising. Halle doesn't answer his call, so he goes down to Near's office on his own. He finds the man sitting on the floor, surrounded by piles of paper and charts and maps, calculator in hand.

A dark haired man is standing in one corner, arms overflowing with a laptop, a tablet and a cup of tea.

"An orphanage in England is contacting us," he tells Near. "They recently accepted twelve disabled kids, and they don't have the resources to provide for them."

"We have capacity for them at the Thornber Orphanage," Near replies, in his distorted mechanical voice. "Divert more funds to Bradley."

Soichiro doesn't announce himself. He just watches them working, fascinated.

"Thanks. Okay, we also just got a call from the Canadian government. They're having trouble cracking a drug ring."

Near thinks for a moment.

"What are the primary drugs of concern?"

"The ring mostly deals in heroin," the man replies. Soichiro thinks his name might be Gevanni.

"The major markets for that will be overseas," Near says. "If they hire Freddy and make him resident at their airport, he should be able to identify the carriers. Our regular fees will apply."

He turns to Soichiro.

"Freddy is a new generation of detection dog," he explains. "He is extremely reliable."

"Some of these papers seem unrelated to each other," Soichiro comments, stepping into the room. "Are you working multiple cases at once? Isn't that counter-productive?"

He realizes how disrespectful he's being as soon as the words are out of his mouth.

_What am I doing?_

_I'm acting like a child._

_I got so excited about actual case work that I forgot myself._

No. Soichiro can never forget himself. He must always protect people. He must always protect people from _himself_.

"I will work single cases once there are not multiple problems in the world that need my attention," Near replies. "Any other questions?"

"Actually, yes," Soichiro says. "I just disobeyed your orders, eavesdropped outside your office, and then started asking you questions. Why are you letting me get away with this?"

Near tilts his head, giving the impression of a curious bird-robot.

"I will explain that later," he says. "Did you have information for me on the Glenford case?"

"Juan was telling the truth," Soichiro says. "It's unbelievable, but the sound of gunshot on the audio recording is inconsistent with the Glock 17. It sounds more like a Glock 17.5, which is a gun that is only manufactured in the second world."

"Juan Glenford had many enemies," Near agrees. "He was an unpleasant man, but we have proof he was framed. Gevanni, please contact the defense lawyers, and then take some time off."

Then he looks at Soichiro.

"Well done," he says. "I knew you wouldn't let me down."

* * *

_Now you have to go on_, the witch tells her. _Find someone else. _

_You won't be free until you find someone who loves you_.

"I know," the ghost replies.

* * *

"You brought me here deliberately," Soichiro says, accusingly. Bright morning sunlight is filtering into the room. "I want to know why."

"You had the technical knowledge."

"As do many other people," Soichiro argues, moving his hand as if to brush away Near's flimsy argument. "I want to know why you chose _me_. What do you want with the father of Kira?"

"I want you to go on working for me," Near says. "But before you make that decision, there is something that you need to know."

Soichiro is getting really sick of all the fucking secrets. He really doesn't miss working for L, he just misses Matsuda. And Aizawa. And Mogi. And oh god, all his men. Some days, he just wants to see one of them again. Just one. Just for _five minutes_.

_The apple never falls far from the tree._

They're better off not knowing him.

"What do I need to know?" Soichiro asks, quietly.

"I hate Light Yagami," Near says. "I hate him more than I hate anything else in the world."

"Everyone hates him," Soichiro says, testily. He cannot bring himself to use Light's name, or the words 'my son'.

Everything hurts. When Light was eleven, he built a remote-controlled airplane out of spare parts. It could fly. By the time Light was eighteen, he was already a mass murderer.

How is Soichiro supposed to live with this?

"Yes, but nobody hates him more than I do," Near says. "He ruined my life. He destroyed everyone I love. I am defined by my hatred for him."

"Then how can you even bear to look at me?" Soichiro asks, voice barely a whisper.

"You are not him," Near replies. "You are nothing like him."

Soichiro lifts his head.

"You can't possibly know that," he declares.

* * *

Soichiro doesn't have time to make a decision. A mass murderer starts aggressively and deliberately targeting Near, using a series of hateful television campaigns.

"Please stay until this is over," Halle implores. "We are overflowing with work as it is. Your assistance would be extremely helpful."

"Fine," Soichiro replies. It's not as if he has anything better to do.

"Would you mind working on a potentially supernatural case?" Near asks. He's putting on his coat, even though he must be exhausted. "Or are those problematic for you after the Kira case?"

"How did you know I worked on the Kira case?"

"In the first world, everyone knows about that," Gevanni tells him. "Kira is now public information."

Soichiro balls his hands into fists, impossibly unhappy.

"I see," he replies.

_Who did this? Who let this happen?_

* * *

Paul is a cheerleader with a lazy eye and excellent taste in shoes. He's as blond as she used to be. He doesn't have a girlfriend.

He isn't frightened when she appears to him for the first time in a mall elevator. He smiles and speaks to her gently.

Maybe he'll love her. Maybe he'll love her and then she'll possess him and then she'll finally get to go home.

She just needs to find one decent man.

She just needs a prince. Just one prince, out of this sea of metaphorical frogs, and then she'll be able to go home and be with _her_ man.

* * *

Soichiro stays behind, sorting through files. He feels a little like his old self, waiting at the office for the lower level police officers to come back with information.

The exploded-heart case is an odd one. The relatives of victims report that they seem to have encountered some sort of ghost, and then died a variable number of days later. Every autopsy shows the same cause of death: spontaneously exploded heart.

_That's impossible_, Soichiro thinks. But then he remembers that he lives in a world where killer notebooks occasionally fall out of the sky.

He watches the news at three o'clock. Another message from the man who calls himself Antinear.

"You say Near is a hero," says the broadcasted voiceover. "You say that he protects your lives. But I am sick of this fraudster deceiving innocent people."

Soichiro wonders if Antinear is as evil as Light. Maybe more evil? How can somebody measure evil? It's either none, like Near, or some, like everyone else.

Or lots, like Soichiro.

Sometimes, when things get too bad, Soichiro likes to think about the younger police officers that used to be under his command. He likes to imagine one of them, in place of his son. He wants to imagine that his son grew up okay and did well for himself and didn't kill anyone. He wants to imagine that he raised Matsuda or Ide, instead of Light.

_The apple doesn't fall far from the tree._

"Well, I am Antinear, and I have murdered eight people in the past two months," the voiceover continues. "Today, at eight pm, I will be sitting in a recording studio at 3 Manly Road. I will have three hostages with me. My gun will be in my pocket. I will be wearing body armour except for my head and the area over my heart. If Near shows up, I will allow him to enter. I will also allow him to shoot me once before I reach for my gun. If he fails to shoot me dead, I will kill him and my hostages and a dozen more people by nightfall. If he does not show up, I will kill two dozen people. And then you will know what sort of man your prince is."

Soichiro chews on his lower lip. He understands this sort of psychological game only too well. And Near's moral code is a difficult one. By not killing criminals, he may be held responsible for any further crimes they commit. Now someone is finally calling him on that.

It isn't fair.

The world needs people like Near.

* * *

"Have you seen this guy?" Paul asks his new friend. "He's all over the news. He hates Near. Near is the good guy, though. But Near never kills and now Near needs to come in and shoot this guy or heaps of people are going to die."

"Why don't they just send in lots of police?" the ghost girl asks, propping her head up on her arms. She's really cute. Paul likes her.

"Because of the hostages," Paul explains. "If they try to enter, he'll kill them. You know Near is cool when criminals are betting that he won't kill them. I want to be a guy like that, one day."

The girl examines the television for a little while.

"They say that Near is a prince," she says, thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Paul agrees. "Oh, quiet now. It's eight o'clock."

He can't wait to see what his hero does.

* * *

Lucas Crisp grins into the camera. He likes making people suffer. He likes destroying great men. It makes him feel strong, powerful even.

He kicks at the hostages with his toe. One of them is only seven years old. Near will not want to be responsible for her death. But Near is practically a force of nature. He won't kill Lucas. He'll destroy his own reputation first. He'll sacrifice other people before his own morality, and that is exactly what Lucas wants.

Someone knocks on the door. The surveillance screen indicates that a tall skinny man is standing right outside the door. He has an ugly face mask and short brown hair.

Lucas is surprised that he has made an appearance.

_What are you going to try?_

He presses the barrel of the gun against the little girl's head.

"If anyone else enters, I will kill her," he announces, to the crowd of cops that are congregating behind Near.

Then he presses a button and the door unlocks. Near steps inside, and the door slams shut behind him.

Lucas is so fucking pleased with himself. He bribed a dodgy television station into broadcasting this live. There is no escape for the world's most pathetic detective.

"Well?" he says, euphoric. "Do you have the balls to shoot me, Mr Near? Or will I shoot her?"

In response, Near whips a gun out of his pocket, and fires square at Lucas' chest.

_Bang_.

* * *

_What_? Soichiro thinks, numb with shock. _What, is that it? _

_You just threw away everything, for him?_

Near leans over to the camera, so that his mask takes up the entirety of the screen.

"I would like to thank one of my colleagues for making me this unique tranquilizer gun," he says, calmly, as police officers swarm into the room. "Good night."

* * *

"Woo hoo!" Paul yells, hugging a pillow and punching the air at the same time. "That's what I'm talking about! Yeah!"

Now seems like as good a time as any.

"Do you love me?" she asks. "Am I good enough for you?"

"Hell yes!" Paul replies, emphatically

But she has heard this response before. People lie. Sometimes people agree just because they're happy. And so she uses her ghost powers and she looks into his heart, and finds that it is empty.

And then she kills him.

* * *

"I didn't learn much," Soichiro says. "I think this case is dangerous."

"Danger is irrelevant," Near replies. "But I understand if you wish to leave."

"I don't," Soichiro replies.

He believes in Near. He has always wanted to believe in people like Near. For the first time since he died, Soichiro begins to wonder. He wonders if maybe, if he works with Near for long enough, maybe he can atone.

No. That isn't possible. So many people died. So many more suffered.

"You are a good man," he says, out loud.

"I don't consider that to be true," Near replies.

"Whatever happened to you, I'm sorry," Soichiro continues. "I…I shouldn't stay here. I'm not safe. And I would never forgive myself if I corrupted you. You see, I'm just like him."

"You've killed people?" Near asks.

"The apple does not fall far from the tree," Soichiro whispers.

"Oh, are we talking about botany?" Near asks. "I have a favourite botanical saying, too. It is this: _the poison does not grow far from the antidote."_

Soichiro hesitates. He knows that phrase. He's heard it before, he's just never applied it in this way.

"Perhaps," Near says, "you are not the poison."

_I could atone_, Soichiro thinks, desperately. _I could atone. If what you say is true, I could atone_.

He wants this life. He wants to work with Near. He wants to rewrite history.

"I wish you were my son," he says, overcome.

"That is the worst thing anyone has ever said to me," Near says, quietly, and walks away.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Halle asks.

"Not really," Near replies. "But I will be fine."

Halle sits beside him on the bed, and takes his hand.

"Gevanni is in love with you," she announces. "I'm sure of it now."

"Oh," Near says.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"Soon," Near replies. "Soon."

It was always going to end up this way, with the three of them.

* * *

"Hi," she says, leaning on the edge of the desk.

The masked man lifts his head and stares at her. Apparently, he never shows anyone his face. Well, that's fine. She doesn't care if he's ugly.

"I was just working on your case," he says, in a weird mechanical voice. "You are real, then."

"Yup!"

"Why did you kill all those people?"

She rolls her eyes. Seriously, she's a fucking superstar. Why should she care about unimportant people? All she wants is to get rid of this curse so she can get out of this stupid body.

"I didn't," she lies.

"I see," Near replies.

He doesn't sound as if he believes her.

* * *

"Listen," Soichiro says. "I'm sorry about last night. I spoke out of turn."

"Apology accepted," Near replies. "I want you to work with Gevanni today. He's progressing a technical case, and mathematics isn't my strong point."

Soichiro frowns.

"Not your strong point? I thought you were supposed to be a genius."

"I am definitely not a genius," Near says, while typing two different word documents at once. "I am actually very lazy. That's why I put so much money into research. I want to find easier ways of doing things."

"You are actually trying to change the world," Soichiro says, admiringly.

"I am trying to undo what Kira did," Near explains. "I want to make it so that nobody lives in fear."

"I want to help," Soichiro says, earnestly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement. But when he turns his head there is nothing there.

Huh.

* * *

She isn't a bad person. She's _not. _She just does what she's told. Well, that's not entirely true. She does what she's told when it suits her. She's not stupid, either.

Near doesn't even pay her much attention. He spends most of the time working.

_I gave up believing in princes a long time ago_, she thinks, ruefully. _What am I even doing here?_

But the witch suggested that she target the prince, and she can't ignore the witch. The witch isn't even a physical witch, just a voice in her head.

Her only companion.

"Tell me about the witch," Near suggests, in one of the rare times that they are alone.

"No," she replies.

* * *

"Why have we stopped working on the exploding heart case?" Soichiro asks.

"Priorities have changed," Near tells him.

* * *

In the next week, they catch three serial murderers, two terrorists, and an international forger. They fund another dog training facility and Near investigates opening a cat training facility. People live.

"The ghost is here, isn't it?" Halle asks on Saturday. "The one people kept talking about. It's real, and it is here. I saw it yesterday."

"I will manage it," Near says. "Everything will be fine."

"Okay," Halle says, because she trusts him.

* * *

"How did you become such a good person?" Soichiro asks. "Is it innate, or learned?"

"My parents raised me well," Near tells him.

* * *

She falls for Near, just a little bit. He listens to her when he has the time. He saves people, like a true prince. His means are stupid, but he seems to be achieving Kira's goals.

She goes to him when he is asleep at his desk, and wakes him.

"Do you love me?" she asks.

"Yes," Near says, without hesitation.

She sneers.

"Liar. We've barely gotten to know each other."

She feels the bile rise up in her throat. She hates this curse. She hates being rejected again and again and again. All she wants is for this to stop. All she wants is to see Light again.

"I know who you are," Near says seriously, and _nobody_ has ever said that to her. In all these years, nobody has ever recognized her. "In the first world, we knew each other. I loved you then, too."

"No," she says, shaking her head in denial.

"You were surrounded by brilliant and beautiful people," Near continues. "And I was never one of them. But I loved you, all the same. Kill me if you have to, but know that you are loved, Misa Amane."

He _does _know.

He knows!

And she looks into his heart, and she sees that he isn't lying. And she feels like she's finally made it home, after years of wandering.

_How?_

And then the witch's voice rears up in her head, telling her that this is her chance. Telling Misa that she needs to possess him.

_This is your only way out. Possess him. Take his life and his body, and you will be able to go home._

_He let you into his heart. You can do it._

Halle storms into the room. Misa ignores her. She stands completely still, hands shaking, staring at this person she doesn't remember, who remembers her.

How is she supposed to kill someone who loves her? Even Light didn't love her. Not really. But they were so good at pretending.

_What are you waiting for? _the voice asks. _Do it._

* * *

Misa bursts into tears.

"I don't want to be alone," she says. "I don't want to be a ghost forever. I want to go back. I want to see Light."

"Is Light here?" Near asks. He puts his arms around her shoulders. "It's okay. I've got you."

"I hate you," she says, because she can't, she _can't_.

_Do it_ the witch says.

_No_, Misa replies.

She's so so scared.

_Good,_ says the voice, suddenly. _Do better next time, Misa Amane_.

And then she disappears.

* * *

"What would you do if Light really did come back?" Halle asks, while sorting her most recent case notes.

"I would do what hurts him the most," Near replies.

"Kill him?" Gevanni asks, uncertainly.

"Ignore him," Near says, wryly.

* * *

"Halle says that you defeated the heart-exploder," Soichiro says, one hand wrapped around a mug of strong coffee. "I'm glad."

Near sits on the stair next to him. Soichiro feels like he's back in the force, having morning tea with another officer.

"I wanted to ask you something," he says, slowly. "Were you one of my men?"

"Excuse me?"

"Were we ever colleagues, in the first world?" Soichiro elaborates. "I've been here for weeks now, and I still can't figure out why you chose me."

"We were never colleagues," Near confirms. "But I looked up to you a lot. I still do. And I chose you because I wanted to show you that the world can be fixed. And that you can fix it."

"Why do you care so much about me?"

In a moment, they will both get up and go back to the office. In a moment, Soichiro will go back to atoning for what Light did. And some day, he may even be okay. Life will go on, no matter how this conversation ends.

"I am concerned that you will think less of me once you know who I am," Near says. "But you believe in me now, right? Please try to remember the way you feel right now."

Soichiro snorts.

"What could you possibly tell me that would make me think less of you?"

"Well, for starters, it was me who made the information on the Kira case public. I authorised that."

Soichiro drops his mug.

"How dare you," he says, quietly. "You had no right."

"I had every right," Near says, simply. "You really don't know who I am, do you? I hide my face and voice because I know they will make people think less of me."

"Who are you?" Soichiro growls.

"I am the antidote," Near says, and he reaches up and pulls his mask away from his face.

* * *

And Soichiro isn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't this. Not these eyes and this face that he knows so well.

_Nobody ever talks about the other apple_.

"Sayu," he says, stumbling over his words. Because…no. His little girl. No. "What has the world done to you?"

"I think you mean, what have I done to the world?" she says, and she's smiling. As if she hasn't changed. She still looks the way he remembers, and he can't imagine her fighting crime. He didn't even want her to date a police officer, let alone become a detective.

"What happened?" he asks, weakly.

"I stopped waiting to be saved," she says. "I started saving people. Would you like to help me? We can undo the damage that Light did."

She puts her arms out and Soichiro hugs her, and he actually _did okay_. He made this other wonderful thing. He isn't just Light's father. Because he unknowingly created a hero and it grew up and went around saving people all on its own.

He has already atoned.

"Yes," he says, thickly. "Yes. Let's do that."

And they do.

* * *

the end

* * *

food trivia from SC

+ L almost never ate the same sweet twice.

+ Rae only ate potato and food made from potatoes.

* * *

please go to my ffn profile for a link to Third Time Lucky.


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